House of Crows
by SilverShine
Summary: KakaSaku. War is coming to Konoha and Sakura is far from home, uncertain of her future. But one thing is for sure, Sakura will protect her unborn child at all costs, whether it be from Konoha's enemies... or from its own father.
1. Prologue

A/N: I've had this drafted for a while, but I've decided to suck it up and get on with it. :D

* * *

**The House of Crows**

Prologue

* * *

_There is a house built out of stone_

_Wooden floors, walls and window sills_

_Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust_

_This is a place where I don't feel alone_

_This is a place where I feel at home_

* * *

She'd seen pictures in Tsunade's office, but they really didn't do the place justice. Pictures couldn't capture the tranquil bird song of the surrounding rainforest, nor had they really warned her about the phenomenal humidity and heat. The moment Sakura arrived at the front gates of the estate she sunk wearily onto her travel pack and tried to gather her strength. A week of constant travel was enough to tire anyone, but she hadn't been prepared for this kind of taxing climate. Only a few days after crossing the border had she been fully introduced to the concept of 'tropical'. Here the trees seemed to tower all the way to the sky; some so wide they could only be spanned by no fewer than twenty people holding hands. The animals were larger, the snakes were deadlier, the insects more numerous and annoying, but the scents and colours were unlike anything she'd ever seen before in the fire country.

Yet any charm the environment had possessed wore off rather quickly as the obstacles began to slow her down. It did not help that virtually every morning she woke feeling sick to her stomach, deathly tired, and desperately hungry for something more substantial than substitute rations. Her well stocked supply of chocolate bars that should have lasted her a fortnight had been consumed in the first two days, leaving her with four days of utter cocoa deprived depression.

But she was finally here, and for a moment struck with awe with what she was about to do. _Get used to this place,_ she warned herself as she swiped the sweat from her brow and flicked away one of the enormous local butterflies with amorous intentions for her kimono's flowery sleeve. _This is practically your new home now._

Eventually she gathered her courage and rose to her feet. With one last deep breath to try and ease the tension from her chest, she picked up her heavy pack and walked through the gates.

"No riff raff are permitted through the main entrance."

The voice startled Sakura so much she let out a yelp and stumbled sideways, away from the old gruff man who had apparently been standing on the other side of the wall beside the gate ever since she'd arrived.

"I – I'm very sorry," she said hastily, giving him a full bow. He looked like one of the gardeners with dirt under his nails and mud caking his boots up to his knees, but one could never assume a man in a garden was a servant. Some lords liked to garden for themselves.

"If you're selling wares, girl, don't bother. They never accept," he said, nodding to the old mansion further down the path, obscured slightly by mossy boulders and mossier trees.

"I'm here for a job," she explained. "They should be expecting me."

Now he gave her a more scrutinising look, and if Sakura hadn't been a kunoichi, she would have found his wild hair and beard and haggard face quite intimidating. He seemed harmless enough though. But by all accounts, the people here were suspicious of outsiders. And with good reason.

"House servant? Go back out and around widdershins until you come to a stile. Follow the path and you'll come to the kitchens. Someone there will probably know what to do with you."

"Thank you."

She bowed again, but by the time she lifted her head he was already stumping away like she'd never even existed. Sakura watched the back of his grizzly head for a moment before daring to call out to him, "It's a beautiful garden, by the way."

He slowed and glanced back at her. His expression wasn't pleasant, but Sakura didn't think it was possible for that face to hold anything resembling pleasantly. He at least didn't look quite so hostile anymore, so Sakura smiled and quickly backtracked through the gate as she'd been told.

Well, that hadn't been _too_ bad a start. However, she wasn't here to impress gardeners, because ultimately it was the household staff that she would have to be convincing.

Following the man's directions, she circled the property anti-clockwise until she came to a stretch of mossy wall broken by a few stone steps that dipped in the middle from the many, many years of use. The stile was an awkward one, and though Sakura managed to climb over it easily enough, she had to wonder how many more months it would be before that was no longer the case. The narrow path behind it led through a slightly wilder patch of garden to the informal side of the house. As she followed it, delicious wafts of cooking herbs and oils wafted over her, making her stomach clench in agonised knots of longing. It had been so long since she'd had anything decent to eat. She'd probably lost a few pounds since leaving Konoha with nothing but this heavy bag full of imitation chicken broth.

And the closer Sakura got to the house, the more she thought she could hear the soft titter of light conversation. Girls, undoubtedly. When she rounded a corner in the path and emerged from behind a patch of bamboo, she saw her suspicions were correct when before her lay an open doorway to a noisy, clanging kitchen and a porch lined with three finely dressed and inordinately beautiful girls her own age.

The moment she appeared however, their light-hearted joking ceased and they all turned to stare baldly at her as if she'd just been spat out of the ground. It made Sakura want to shrink back behind the shrubs. It wasn't exactly contempt in their faces, but they clearly thought she had some explaining to do, appearing out of nowhere like that.

Then one of them said blithely, "New girl."

"Oh," the other two chorused, and they all promptly went back to the previous conversation.

This was even worse. It was one thing to be stared at like a strange animal, but another to be ignored entirely. Sakura shifted uncomfortably and looked around, wondering where the hell she was supposed to go. Being a kunoichi, she'd never really had to apply for a job before. She had only a vague idea what to expect from what Ino had told her, but other than that, she was suddenly deeply and acutely aware of how alone she was. Her nearest friends were a week away, and this place was so strange and foreign, and no one seemed all that nice…

"Girls, if you will chatter all day, at least _pretend_ to be busy while doing it," said a woman as she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, flapping her hands to shoo the string of girls perched on the edge of the porch. They only smiled like it was a joke, but then the older woman herself didn't look particular serious.

When she spotted Sakura, however, she began to look confused. "Oh… who is this?"

"New girl," said the same girl as before.

"Sakura, ma'am," Sakura offered. "My last employer sent you a reference…?"

"Oh. Yes. Sakura." The woman still looked confused. "You were expected last Tuesday, though."

"Um, the journey was a little harder than expected."

"All the way from the Fire country, I see? Your accent is strong."

"Sorry."

"No matter," the woman shrugged and assumed her previously pleasant demeanour. "Pass me that heavy case of yours and we'll get you sorted."

Relieved to have found someone who knew who she was, Sakura quickly obeyed and followed the woman indoors, through the cluttered and busy kitchen and out into the quieter corridors beyond. It was a little cooler there, but not by much. Sakura dreaded to think what she looked like to this spotless woman, or what she even _smelled _like. A week of travel, no proper bathing, and sweating like a pig in a jungle… she couldn't have been making that good an impression, but the woman seemed cheerful enough.

"I'm Himiko, I'm the Lady Zuru's retainer and head of the household staff. You'll be answering mostly to me. Your job will be much like your last job – cleaning, mending, washing, serving the family, mostly. Do you sing?"

"No," Sakura said rather quickly and firmly.

"Pity. Your face is a nice shape though, so that's good. The master _does_ rather insist on being surrounded with exquisite girls. Oh – don't worry. It's purely aesthetic reasons; he's a man who wants everything pretty and perfect, but only to look upon." But then she gave Sakura a slightly hesitant look over his shoulder. "Although his son… well, we'll talk about that later."

Sakura busily tried to take in all this information as Himiko pushed open a screen door. "This is where you'll be sleeping with the other girls," she said, leading her inside the empty room. "Although mostly they'll be busy keeping you up with their incessant chatter and games. Let's put your things down here, shall we? Yes. Right, now let's sit and you can tell me what on earth you think you're doing here."

Sakura froze. "I'm sorry?"

Himiko was already kneeling down and pleasantly gesturing for Sakura to do the same. "I can tell just from looking at you, you know. It's fairly obvious. You're not a servant girl at all."

Sakura sank to her knees, despair welling up thick and strong within her. Great. No sooner had she arrived than she'd already been found out. Now this woman probably planned to interrogate her to discover who had sent her, and then maybe one of the guards would be called in to execute her. Where _had _she put that cyanide pill anyway?

"Was I that obvious?" she whispered brokenly.

"Only to a woman as experienced as me, my dear," Himiko said, patting her hand. "All girls in your situation have a similar air and look about them."

"I swear, that'll go away if I just had a bath...!"

The older woman laughed lightly, worryingly calm and friendly despite the fact that she was addressing a spy. Sakura feared she was one of those women who could smile like angel while driving a knife across your throat. Until she asked, "How far along are you?"

"Pardon…?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

"You're not really showing yet, and I imagine it's your first. I'd guess maybe one month or two."

Sakura's mouth had run inexplicably dry all of a sudden. She didn't know if this was worse than being caught out as a spy. But the woman before her was so knowing and confident that Sakura knew it was pointless to deny. "Just over eight weeks now, actually," she said weakly.

"Oh, don't look so worried. I'm not going to cast you off. That would be cruel," Himiko said dismissively. "But I suspect your reference letter held a few fibs about your experience in order to foist you off onto us. Who wrote it? Your hands may show the calluses of honest, hard work, but you've certainly never been employed before, so I sincerely doubt it was your 'last employer'."

It had been her Hokage, actually. But Sakura had already been building a story to explain away her condition, since it was only inevitable that she would be found out if the mission lasted as long as projected. "My guardian wrote it," she said, with suitable humility. "I'm in disgrace, really. I just need a job for a while to find my feet. I hope I won't be a burden to you."

"Servants have married and raised children here alongside the family for many years. You won't be a burden," Himiko assured her. "But what about the father?"

Yes. What about the father?

"It's just that in my experience," the woman went on, "men either want nothing to do with their child, or everything to do with their child. I just want to make sure he isn't the type to track you down and cause a scene. The family won't like that."

Sakura swallowed. "No… no, he won't be coming."

Himiko arched a thin eyebrow speculatively. "He wasn't your lover, was he?"

She shook her head. "No."

That eyebrow lowered quickly in distaste. Sakura could already read the conclusion she'd drawn.

"I wasn't forced," Sakura added hastily. "It was just a stupid mistake."

"How old are you, Sakura?"

"Twenty."

"An unfortunately young age to be making such mistakes." Himiko shook her head sadly. "It's always the women who pay the most in these things, but we'll do our best to make you comfortable here."

Sakura gave a wobbly little smile, trying to ignore the guilt squeezing her insides. She was only here to worm her way into the inner workings of this place in order to stab them in the back. Perhaps that task would have been easier if this woman was a stone-cold bitch. Being welcomed with open, compassionate arms gave Sakura deep discomfort at the thought of ruining this woman's employers, something that would invariably lead to most, if not all the staff here being made redundant.

Well, she was getting ahead of herself. Her job first was to ascertain any connection this 'family' had with the growing crime syndicate Konoha had under observation. It might well be the case that there was no connection at all, and Sakura's time would have been wasted here, but at least this nice woman would still have her work.

Of course, there were other more important reasons why Sakura had taken this mission, ones which had nothing to do with crime syndicates or noble families and everything to do with the tiny problem growing inside her. But there was still plenty of time for that yet.

"I'll show you to the servant's washroom and let you recover from your trip, young lady," Himiko said kindly. "When you're finished, there'll be a tray of food waiting for you here, and then we can talk more about your duties."

There was nothing quite like a bath when you truly needed one. As Sakura later sank into the blessedly warm water of one of the servant's baths, she allowed her mind to try and adjust to her new situation while the water soothed her aching muscles. A lot of people lived and worked in this place, and Sakura had to keep on their good sides. They would suspect her naturally, being a foreigner, especially if this really was the base of many a dodgy operation, but Tsunade had warned her that the best way to blend in was to simply be herself and hang back for as long as necessary for the scrutiny to pass.

She had to be careful though. The reports were that the master of this estate was ruthless. With her closest back-up on the other side of a distant border, there would be no one to help her if she was caught. Should she screw up, it would be weeks before anyone in Konoha noticed a lack of communications. Months before anyone came to investigate.

But it wasn't just her own life that she had to look out for now. Every move she made from now on would be second and third guessed to avoid making _any_ mistakes, because she couldn't afford to be careless now. All because of one stupid mistake she'd already made…

Sakura passed her hands over her belly, exploring the faintest of bumps that was now quite familiar to her. Beneath her palms lay a flicker of something apart from her. One day she would hold it in her arms, and then one day after that it would be a full person as deep and complex as herself.

Not for the first time, the prospect left her feeling overwhelmed and she hastily blinked back hot tears. She wished again that it simply wasn't happening to her. That she'd never made that mistake eight weeks ago that had, in some ways, cost her her life. It would never be the same again after this, would it?

But this was the only way.

* * *

Next chapter: _One Day in July..._


	2. One Day in July

A/N: I know the last line in the prologue scared some people. XD Rest assured, it was the title of the next chapter, not an estimate of when it would be posted. Hilarious though.

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter One: One Day in July

* * *

_Is it any wonder_

_That I'm finding someone in this place here next to me?_

* * *

**8 Weeks Ago**

The only real deviation from routine that morning in the Hokage's waiting room was that Sakura was reading a book of poetry. This was her new _Thing_.

It had to be said that Sakura picked up interests and hobbies the way a dog picked up fleas, only she shed them much more easily. But just because she rarely stuck to a new hobby didn't make her interest at the time any less keen, or make Sakura herself any less knowledgeable about her chosen subject. There had to be some way to pass the time while they waited for their team leader to arrive so they could begin briefing for their next mission, and Sakura found reading poetry was far more productive than just staring at the walls and twiddling fingers in ears the way Sai and Naruto were doing, respectively.

When Kakashi finally had the grace to appear, none of his subordinates even looked up to condemn him.

"You're late, sensei," Sakura said archly.

"What was it this time?" Naruto demanded, who over the years had developed a near perverse interest in just how varied and broad their sensei's lies could be.

Kakashi shrugged. "The drinking fountain outside the academy was broken, and as I walked past I noticed a long queue of miserable, thirsty-looking kids. As a jonin, I thought it my civic duty and responsibility to rush to the nearest water supply and get help. It was lucky I did. By the time I returned, three had already passed out-"

Naruto flopped back, no longer interested. "You told that one two weeks ago."

"You don't think something can happen twice?" Kakashi asked.

"Not when there's no drinking fountain outside the academy," Sai pointed out.

"Ah," Kakashi nodded. "No wonder those kids were so thirsty then."

He took his seat next to Sakura and fetched out his own book. This in itself was slightly unusual, as Kakashi often liked to keep at least one seat between him and anyone else for one reason or another. However, there were only six chairs in the waiting room, and the other two were on the other side of the room. As antisocial as he was, Kakashi wasn't able to be _that _blatantly antisocial.

For the most part, Sakura didn't care where he sat; she was engrossed with her poems and their pretty, clever language and rhymes. A lot of the poems were about love and beautiful women, some sad, some uplifting, some angry, and some quite crude. She loved the range and the rhythm and sighed wishfully at how romantic it must be to have an eloquent man so moved by his love for you that he could translate and immortalise his feelings on paper.

Beside her, Kakashi chuckled. She glanced at him, thinking he was enjoying another lewd Icha Icha joke (which she hated), but quickly did a double-take when she realised he was actually reading _her _book over _her _shoulder.

Instinctively she clapped the poetry book shut and twisted away. "What are you laughing at?" she snapped.

"You," he said easily. "Since when were you interested in poetry?"

Sakura blushed, but she wasn't too embarrassed. This was her new Thing, after all, which she'd picked up because she liked the idea of being the kind of girl who read poetry. But Kakashi's chuckle disarmed her. He clearly didn't think she was that type of girl at all.

"What's wrong with poetry?" she asked sniffily. "This is celebrated literature. Although I don't expect _you_ to appreciate that."

Anyone who got Jiraiya's sense of humour had to be pretty lowbrow, she thought.

"I can appreciate poetry as much as the next man," he said. "That's Naka, isn't it?"

"Congratulations, you can read the spine."

He smiled softly. "I know a bit about Naka."

"Oh yeah?" Sakura didn't believe him for a second.

"'_Her soul does withers faster than her face.'"_

Sakura stared at him.

"Act three of _Mountain and Sea. _He wrote during his stint as the last emperor's imperial poet," he explained, turning back to his book. "One of the last things he wrote before the revolution arrived and he was executed along with the rest of the court as the empire dissolved."

Sakura stared at him. "I didn't know you knew so much about poetry."

"I have many hobbies," he said elusively. "From the look of what you're reading, that's probably his early work before he became an imperial lapdog."

"Yes," Sakura said, looking at her book. "His best work."

"I doubt that. His early work is ridiculously whimsical and obsessed with romance. It isn't until he began writing for the empire that he found his stride," Kakashi told her.

"What? Poems about war and glory and agriculture?" Sakura pulled a face. "His later work is terrible – it's obvious he's pulling it out of his ass to stroke his employer's ego. He totally sold out."

"Well, I'm not surprised you like the lovey-dovey stuff," Kakashi sighed. "You _are_ a girl."

"What's that got to do with it?" she retorted. "It's clear that his early work is far superior in terms of his passion for the prose."

"But his technical skill is much greater in his later life."

"Technical skill is nothing compared to passion!"

"Yet he didn't make a single penny when he was writing for love."

It might sound on the surface as if they were engaging in a real argument. Naruto and Sai certainly thought so, and gave each other slightly concerned looks, as while it was as common for Sakura to pick a fight with their team leader as it was for her to suck up to him, it was unusual for Kakashi to take any notice.

However, in truth they were both enjoying themselves. A small smile was playing on Sakura's lips throughout the entire exchange as she tried to educate her sensei on the value of passion, and marvelling that Kakashi had quite strong opinions on the value of precision… for a man who she hadn't previously thought held any strong opinions on any matter whatsoever, let alone punctuality.

"What happened to your old Thing, anyway?" he asked, turning back to his book.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she sniffed.

"You know," he prompted. "The knitting Thing."

"She stopped that for _your_ own good," Naruto told him. "You kept wearing everything she knitted for you. She felt sorry for you after a while."

"But I liked that yellow scarf," Kakashi said. "I still have it and I'm going to wear it next winter."

Naruto snorted as if he didn't notice Sakura's glares. "Despite there being a hole big enough to fit your hand through?"

"_Because _of there being a hole big enough to fit my hand through."

"I knitted you better ones!" Sakura protested. "You just kept wearing that one out of spite to embarrass me!"

"It was the first thing anyone had ever knitted for me; it had sentimental value. I cherish it as much as the first plant that Naruto gave me: Mr Ukki."

"I bet he named the scarf too," Naruto speculated.

"He names everything," Sakura agreed with an exaggerated wink.

"Is this a reference to his penis?" Sai asked reasonably. This was a bit too much for Sakura and Naruto who began laughing so hard they were both left gasping and clutching the armrests of their chairs for dear life.

Kakashi gave them all a cool look. "You three are cruel and cheeky to your poor old sensei. I should give you all away to Gai."

"We'll be good, Kaka-sensei," Sakura said sweetly, bumping her shoulder against his to let him know they were only teasing him. "But I'll make you like Naka's best poems whether it's the last thing I do."

Kakashi looked plaintively at her. "You're abusing me."

"You can't abuse people with poetry, you philistine," she retorted to him.

"Clearly you've never been a prisoner of war, as I have. How do you think I know so much about poetry?"

"You know so much about poetry because you're a soft-hearted old romantic with a tortured soul who craves the literary eloquence to put into words what's in your heart," she told him.

His attention was fixed firmly on his porn book, but she could tell he was smiling as if on the verge of laughter. "You've got me," he conceded, unable to keep the amusement out of his tone.

Sakura sat back triumphantly.

This was how the day that changed her life began. If there was any event at which she could point to and definitively say _this_ was the ultimate fork in her road of life, then here was where it started. According to Kakashi, the road of life was an easy one to get lost down. She'd never been inclined to agree, as she'd always been so certain of her future and where it was going (and that Kakashi's bullshit to cover for his lateness was as limitless as it was meaningless), but there was no denying, retrospectively, that the events of this particular morning diverted the course of her life forever.

When Tsunade finally called them into her office, she presented them with two scrolls. "Split mission, I'm afraid," she said. "You know how it is."

"Oh, man," Naruto moaned aloud. "These never go anywhere!"

"There's a lot of rumours floating around about the Iwa village contracting the help of a mercenary group, Naruto, and we _need _to check them all out on the off-chance that _one_ of them leads to something tangible," the Hokage reminded him. "You're lucky this is a relatively short assignment. You should all be back by the end of the week."

"Small miracles," Kakashi murmured, taking both scrolls and handing one to Naruto. Already Sakura could see along which lines the team was going to split.

That was normal these days. With the sheer number of missions being assigned to chase down every rumour, teams were being cut in half all over the place to cover more ground. But there was always a worrying lack of action. Right now they were simply sent out to observe and spy, though Team Kakashi never found anything worth reporting. For every possible lead of an enemy incursion into the fire country there were a hundred other dead ends, but all of them had to be investigated regardless.

They'd been sent out on six of these so far, with Kakashi leading one half and Naruto leading the other. Every single time, Sakura had been paired off with the former.

"What's the mission this time," she asked, inching closer to Kakashi to peer at the scroll he was reading.

"We have word that an elite Iwa jonin is meeting with mercenaries in one of these two towns in exactly three days," Tsunade told the team. "Jonan to the north and Chiba to the east. One of them is apparently a decoy, so you'll have to split up again."

"Both are probably a decoy," Kakashi pointed out, scrutinising the mission brief.

"Probably," the Hokage agreed. "But if this is true, it'll mean trouble. These aren't ordinary mercenaries. They're the operators of the Syndicate."

After a significant pause, Kakashi nodded and rolled up his scroll. "We'll do our best. Naruto and Sai will take Chiba, Sakura and I will take Jonan. Is that agreed?"

Two of his subordinates nodded – the third just scowled at him. "How come you always take Sakura-chan?" Naruto demanded suspiciously.

"Because whenever I go anywhere with you," Sakura said, before Kakashi could open his mouth, "you always peek at me when I'm changing! Kakashi-sensei on the other hand is a perfect gentleman."

"That really depends on who you ask," he mused softly. "Is that all, Hokage-sama?"

Tsunade waved them away. "Start preparations," she said. "You're all dismissed – and send in the next lot on your way out."

As they left the office, Naruto juggled his scroll from hand to hand with a smug look on his face. "_Our_ mission will be the real one," he said. "Can't wait to see your faces when we come back with a whole heap of info, and maybe one or two mercenaries to boot."

"Oh, you really think so?" Sakura squared off with him in the corridor. "You're so full of it! _We'll _be the ones to bring anything back if there's anything to be had. Isn't that right, Kaka-sensei?"

Nothing.

"Sensei?" Sakura glanced around at the man walking ahead of them. "You listening?"

Apparently, he hadn't, as he chose that moment to turn his head vaguely in her direction with a distracted, "Hm?" His mind was clearly miles away.

"Don't be such a flake," she scolded him. "Where's your competitive enthusiasm?"

"Yes," he said, with the same inattentiveness. He wasn't listening to a word she said.

"Good luck with your half then," Naruto said, shaking his head at both of them. "We'll see you when we get back, and you're paying for drinks when we return with the bad guys."

"No, I'm not," Sakura called after him. "Because we'll be the ones to get the bad guys!"

"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto waved goodbye and split away down another corridor with Sai.

Sakura caught up with Kakashi and walked alongside him, hands behind her back and smiling slightly. "What's got you so many miles away then?" she cajoled. "Flashbacks to horrible poetry recitals in dank Cloud village prison camps?"

"I was just thinking," he said, in a markedly more serious tone than her, "Jonan is in the north-west province."

"So?"

"So that was where Sasuke was last seen, wasn't it?"

"Oh… yeah." The bottom of Sakura's stomach dropped out and her smile faded away. That name always stirred an ache in her chest whenever she heard it, often enough to make her wish she _hadn't_ heard it. "Well… it's a big province," she began tentatively.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"So it's not like…"

"No," he agreed again.

"He's probably moved on since then anyway."

"Sure." He shrugged his shoulders and seemed to force the issue from his mind. "Well, I'm ninety-nine percent sure this mission will be a dud, so don't forget to bring a pack of cards or something. Maybe a board game?"

"I'll bring some Naka," she told him.

"Ah. And I'll bring some earplugs."

They parted ways outside the tower with the promise to meet each other by the west gates at eight o'clock sharp the next morning. Sakura knew she wouldn't have to set her alarm; Kakashi wouldn't show up till at least half-nine either way.

As Sakura slowly plodded homewards, she found herself inexplicably brought down to earth with a thump by Kakashi's passing mention of Sasuke. It was true that the last reported sighting of the young man had been exactly two weeks ago somewhere along one of the coastal towns of the north east province of the fire country, probably very near the town they would be scoping in a few days. Tsunade had sent some obligatory ANBU to track him down, but as always the trail was cold. Sasuke didn't want to be found, and while he kept his head down and caused little trouble, Tsunade wasn't that keen on finding him either.

There was only so much you could try to help someone who didn't want help. Sakura had long ago accepted that this might be how it would always be from now on: a few reports every couple of months, but no more than that.

Naruto would never give up on their friend, but Sakura's heart wasn't as strong as his. It couldn't take the absence, and the waiting, and the rejection, and the failure after failure of her own ability to reach him. Wherever Sasuke was now and whatever he was doing, it was not part of her life anymore. Some things you couldn't hold onto, no matter how hard you wished, and as Sakura fell asleep that night with her eyes on the first photograph Team Seven had ever taken together, no one could say she wasn't wishing hard enough.

* * *

When Sakura woke, she packed the last of her necessities (and some unnecessities too) and set off towards the east gate. She arrived at nine on the button and it was only another twenty minutes before Kakashi showed up.

"What happened this time?" she yawned to him.

"I fell over in the shower this morning, and until ten minutes ago was in intensive care at the hospital. They said I probably shouldn't move for the next two weeks, but I said it would have to wait because I had work to do."

"Such drive," she deadpanned, although she suspected she was missing an L at the end of one of those words.

"Thank you."

He began to move past her to, but the moment he drew level with her Sakura's hand suddenly whipped out to catch his sleeve. He didn't react, not even when she leaned close to give three very exaggerated sniffs near his shoulder. Kakashi simply bore her intruding nose patiently until she made a sudden, disgusted sound and stomped ahead. "I thought you said you'd stopped that!" she ground out.

"Stopped what?" he asked innocently, following along behind her.

"Don't give me that – I can smell it all over you."

"Put your nose away."

"You only do it to relax when you're stressed," she accused. "What have you got to be stressed about?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a war on," he pointed out.

"Not yet, there isn't. And like that prospect would ever stir a hair on your head." Sakura stared at him expectantly, but if she thought the answer would come flooding out, she was mistaken. Kakashi just let his gaze wander over to the trees in a thoughtful, vacant way, until Sakura sighed noisily and gave up. "Let's just go," she groaned. "But don't do it while we're on the mission. It's dirty."

"Am I permitted to do other dirty things instead then?"

"It's only a week, I'm sure you can restrain yourself."

That was perhaps a bit too optimistic.

As with any other mission, they set off rapidly, seeking to cover as much ground as possible in order to set up their stake-out early. They headed northeast into agricultural land where their target village of Jonan lay tucked between endless plains of farms and rice paddies. Naruto and Sai would be heading east to their village, though Sakura hoped the boys were the ones who would be stuck with the decoy. She hadn't seen decent action in weeks and all this sitting around and doing nothing was as interesting as watching paint dry.

Still… some small part in the middle of her brain would be secretly glad if there was nothing to find on this mission. The implications of these rumours alone already had plenty of people losing sleep.

The concentration required for travelling at speed left little room for pleasant small talk, but they took regular breaks every couple of hours to sit in the shade of a generously leafy tree and drink from their water flasks. Kakashi poured some over his head, so Sakura played copycat and did the same – only to wind up squeaking in disgust when too much dribbled down her neck and under her vest. Kakashi did a fine job of disguising his laugh as a cough.

"And you don't even sweat," she complained. Under her clothes she felt uncomfortably clammy, and as she sat her knees had begun to stick to each other.

"That's because I'm perfect," he said with complete straight-faced sincerity.

"Hah!" Sakura scoffed, and they set off again, wet, but refreshed.

It was a two day trek to Jonan, so the first night of their mission had to be spent outdoors beneath the moon. Kakashi picked the place in a copse of trees and Sakura was given the 'honour' of cooking their supper. They talked a little, but mostly they were too tired, and Kakashi _would_ keep spacing out on her like he'd been doing since yesterday.

"Is something the matter?" she asked quietly after she noticed his distant stare had gone on too long.

"Hm?" He glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

"Is there something going on that I should know about?" she asked. "You're a million miles away."

"Just thinking." He smiled softly and sipped the boiled broth she'd given him.

She liked seeing him smile; it was warm and gentle, and a touch insecure. She'd only seen it for the first time a few years ago, though she had no idea why it had taken that long as he didn't seem to have a problem showing his face to people. At least he obligingly took down his mask for medics when they asked to see his tonsils, even if it was with the grudging stoicism of a man being asked to removed his underwear and present himself.

Though the first time she saw his face, she'd been left feeling inexplicably depressed about it afterwards. It wasn't that he was ugly, or handsome, or any different from what she'd imagined (she supposed he was cute in an irregular sort of fashion). Sakura had known the mask for so long that it had become his face in a way, so that to see behind it was a greater violation of her image of him than if he really had taken down his pants and presented himself.

She was more used to his appearance now. But even so, sometimes she couldn't help feeling a little shy around him when he was unmasked. Just being able to see one of his soft smiles felt more intimate than any other kind of smile from any other person.

They retired to their respective sleeping bags, laid out beside each other. It was strange how indoors such a proximity would have been quite significant, but sleeping within a foot or two of each other outdoors felt normal and respectable. And true to her observation in Tsunade's office, when they got changed the next morning, Kakashi respectfully turned his back and did not peek.

At least not in any way she would detect.

It was a full day of more travelling before they finally arrived in the village of Jonan, and immediately they settled in an inn at the top of a cliff that overlooked most of the small town from a perfect vantage point. With still another day to go until the supposed meeting between the Iwa jonin and the 'mercenaries', there was not much to do other than lounge around on the porch outside their shared room, looking out over the sparse population going about their business in the town like ants in their nest. Everyone looked so bland and pale and boring that if an Iwa jonin strode through, he'd stick out like a termite amongst those ants. Sakura left the watching to Kakashi, even though he only had one practical eye. Instead she settled on her feathery futon in the long strip of afternoon sunshine that filtered through the open screen doors and dangled the mission scroll above her to read.

"Kakashi-sensei?" she began in a sing-song voice.

"Yes, Sakura-chan?" he replied in the same tone.

"What's the syndicate then?" She rolled over onto her stomach and looked through the doors at his turned back. He took so long to answer that Sakura was sure he'd forgotten her question, busy as he was peeking down at the rooftops through one half of a pair of binoculars as if they were a monocular. "You know," she began again, "the syndicate that these mercenaries are supposed to be operating?"

Kakashi lowered the binoculars with a sigh, but didn't turn to acknowledge her. "It's a crime ring," he said. "That's what the syndicate is. It's said to be run by mercenaries, but no one really knows that for sure. It might just as easily be a loosely organised collection of cells with no leader or leaders whatsoever, which is why this mission is nonsense."

That gave Sakura pause. She frowned at Kakashi's back, wondering if she really had detected a note of impatience in his voice. For once, he sounded like he didn't actually want to talk.

Or maybe, like her, the sense of suspended animation was getting to him. It had been so long since any real mission had been handed to them that it _was_ easy to feel frustrated at the whole situation. However, being a war veteran himself and probably having been through these periods of eerie quiet before the first bloodshed, for Kakashi to be unable to contain impatience was… out of character.

"Is something wrong?" Sakura ventured quietly.

He hesitated, then turned and gave her a friendly smile. "Not at all," he told her, before resuming his watch. For the rest of the evening he minded his manners a little better, but Sakura wasn't fooled for a second. She watched Kakashi as conscientiously as he watched the town, trying to figure out why his shoulders were raised and tense, why he kept running his hand through his hair, and why a permanent scowl had developed on his normally expressionless face. It was most obvious whenever he took down his mask to eat, such as when they went down to supper. The hostess seemed to take offence at his expression, and Sakura couldn't blame her. He looked as though he was being subjected to a terrible tasting meal.

Sakura didn't venture much conversation with him as they changed into their night clothes behind modesty screens and climbed into their separate futons on either side of the room. And when Sakura didn't instigate conversation, Kakashi himself never took up the baton. In fact he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that Sakura realised she was the only one who noticed their peculiar silence.

Was it her? Had she annoyed him about something without realising?

In the cool darkness of their room, Kakashi slept silently. Every now and then Sakura couldn't resist lifting her head to see if he was still there, because for some reason, deep down, she had a horrible sense that if she didn't keep an eye on him, he'd disappear. She'd never had such an irrational feeling before, but every time she glanced over at his futon, she was reassured to see his fair, scruffy hair and lumpy covers.

Of course he wasn't going anywhere! Where on earth would he have to go?

Wind battered the cliff, rattling the roof tiles and walls as a frigid draft rolled through the inn room. Sakura pulled her blankets more tightly about herself and buried her cold nose in the pillow. As much as she despaired at the lack of action lately, she also felt wary of the developing war. She'd only been in a few battles and they'd always been short and fairly decisive. She'd never experienced a fully fledged and drawn out war with another major village. Growing up, everything had seemed so secure. Warring clans and villages were part of history, something that had gone the way of the dinosaurs by the time she was born.

But here they were, teetering on the brink of another feudal era, and that safe, secure feeling she'd grown up with was hard to regain. Not since working with Tsunade had made her all too aware of Konoha's steady decline from being one of the most feared and respected villages, to being the old has-been at the mercy of younger, stronger villages. The vultures had been circling ever since the Sandaime's death. They knew a crippled animal when they saw it; they were just waiting for the right moment and the right conditions to attack.

Kakashi had been through this before, hadn't he? Surely he had some reassuring things to say on the matter? Sakura compulsively lifted her head to look for him, and immediately her insides froze.

His blankets were folded back and his bed was empty.

Sakura sat up hastily and twisted to look around the room. "Kaka-sensei?" she whispered cautiously, but none of the shadows whispered back.

For a moment she hesitated, warm and cosy in her bed and not that inclined to leave it… yet worried all the same. With an irritable click of tongue, she pushed the covers aside and tiptoed to the door to take a peep down the long, dark and silent corridor outside. She stopped and listened. Ok, not that silent; she could clearly make out the snorts and snores of other guests in neighbouring rooms – and even the distant, muffled sound of a woman clearly moaning in excitement. Sakura told herself she was just enjoying some nice midnight chocolate, and Kakashi was _not_ involved, even though that wouldn't surprise her.

She also heard the faint thumping of a door in the wind that wasn't quite shut properly. At the very end of the corridor she could see it; a door to the outside most likely, and she was almost certain it had been firmly closed when they'd arrived.

Suspicions rising, Sakura padded silently across the cold floorboards until she could reach out and touch her hand to the unlatched door that was rocking gently in the wind. She held her breath and counted to three – then flung the door open and threw herself outside.

"Aha!" she hissed.

Kakashi sat a few metres away on a tree stump with his elbow resting far too nonchalantly on the fence beside him. "Oh," he said with contrived surprise, "hello, Sakura."

She wasn't fooled for a second. "Lift your foot up."

"…no."

"Sensei!"

With a sigh he lifted his sandaled foot and Sakura swooped down to pick up the offending little paper stick that, while flattened, was still glowing at one end. "I thought you promised to restrain yourself on this mission?" she pointed out.

"If you recall, I made no such promise," he replied. "But the fact that there was a cigarette under my foot is nothing but circumstantial evidence."

Sakura stubbed it out properly on the fence and threw it up into the air where the wind promptly caught it and took it away over the cliff. She looked back at Kakashi with a forbidding scowl as she opened her mouth.

"I don't need a lecture from the anti-smoking lobby," he interrupted. "You look after your own health, I'll do whatever I like with mine."

"I wasn't going to say anything like that," she lied. "It's just that I count this as the second time in two days I've caught you smoking. That's not like you."

"Why not?" he asked.

"You told me yourself that you never smoked alone, or else only when you're stressed."

"I forgot to mention I also smoke after sex," he said, raising his eyebrows at her as if daring her to be outraged.

Sakura decided to ignore his attempt at derailing the conversation. "You've been acting odd since we got this mission," she pointed out. "Like you're annoyed at something."

"I'm not annoyed at anything," he denied.

"Is it me?" she asked evenly. "Have I done something…?"

Kakashi gave her a stupefied look. "Why would you have-" and he quickly bit off his own words as if suddenly realising the harshness of his own tone. "Perhaps I just don't like this mission. That's all."

Another gust of wind blew over them and Sakura folded her arms guardedly. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't particularly warm either; she could feel the goosebumps prickling over her skin. "Why?" she asked him.

"It's pointless," was all he said.

"You don't know that for sure," she countered. "We might find something tomorrow-"

"We won't," he interrupted again.

There was a deadly certainness in his tone, and Sakura had to admit to herself he was probably right. Nevertheless, Kakashi wasn't one to grow impatient with slow missions. He often seemed to prefer them sometimes, so why would this mission grate on his nerves so much?

"It's the calm before the storm, Sakura," he said evenly. "I give us about a month more… then the Fourth Secret War will break out."

Sakura shivered. No one liked to put it quite as plainly as that. Everyone _knew_ war was coming, but no one really said it, and no one would say it till the day an Iwa nin killed a Konoha nin, or vice versa, and then it would be all they knew for a long time.

"Kaka-sensei?" she asked softly.

"Mm?"

"What's war like?"

He glanced down at her. "Are you worried?"

"I suppose," she said vaguely. She knew she _was _worried, but as of yet it wasn't a gut-clenching fear, though she wondered if perhaps it _should_ be a gut-clenching fear if she knew what was good for her. "I've never been through a war before."

He inhaled deeply and then released it slowly. "It's not so bad once you get the hang of it. As long as you're careful, most people do see the other side. You shouldn't be worried. You're a smart, strong girl."

Sakura warmed at the compliment, and had to remind herself that this was a man who had seen it through the last world war – the worst of the big three, by all accounts. If anyone knew anything about war, it was him. "What happens if we lose?" she asked him, because this was the ultimate end that everyone in Konoha feared.

"If we lose?" he repeated flatly. "Who knows? It depends on Iwa. Typically we'll be occupied and exploited. Pressure will be put on our daimyo, and most likely we'll lose a lot of strategic territory to the earth country which they'll probably use as launching platforms for further wars against smaller countries until they control most of the north-west region. If they're feeling particularly ruthless, they'll probably burn Konoha to the ground and what's left of the ninja clans and civilians that live there will be forced out as refugees to either join other villages, or perhaps start a new one. It's a very uncertain future for a village that loses a war. Even if we survive, we'll be fragmented."

That didn't sound fun. Sakura frowned deeply into the dark and swallowed hard. "I don't think I could leave Konoha." Another blast of wind picked up her hair and blew it around her face. She squinted, shivering almost visibly now.

Kakashi began shrugging out of his black fleece jacket. "You won't have to," he said. "Because we won't lose. Iwa's forces are pretty much equal to our own and we're more experienced overall. If they invade we'll have the advantage of knowing the territory and the climate. And if all else fails we have the Kyuubi. Defeat is unlikely."

As he said this, he reached around her and pulled his jacket around her shoulders. The warmth of it was incredible that Sakura stopped shaking almost immediately, though she was slightly annoyed at both herself for trembling and at him for taking unnecessary pity. Still. She was warm now… even if his collar smelled unpleasantly of smoke, and he was rubbing his hands up and down her covered arms in a brisk, affectionate way that reassured her his dark mood was not aimed at her. "But why would they want to start a war _now_ of all times? Why not sooner?" she pointed out to him. "I don't think they'd be moving this way, not unless they have something they didn't have before."

"A hidden ace?" Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe not. Iwa's strategising was never their strong point, and they're still demoralised from the last time we defeated them. I can't see how they could stand a fighting chance, even with all the hidden tricks in the world."

"What if their hidden ace is the Syndicate?" she asked.

His hands paused on her shoulders and he seemed to think for a moment. "Even if we assume that's true, and we assume that the Syndicate really is operated by mercenaries, Iwa would be taking their lives into their hands. You don't trust criminals to fight your wars. It almost always backfires."

She'd been right, of course. He'd been through this before and he _did_ have reassuring words on the matter. Just hearing his matter-of-fact voice outline why exactly Konoha wouldn't lose chased a lot of unease away that she hadn't even realised she'd had until she felt light and easy again. "Thank you," she whispered.

Normally after imparting cheerful advice and after she'd thanked him, he would smile and possibly even touch the top of her head affectionately like she just a silly worrywart. But when he glanced at her now, his eye was dark and almost unreadable. Almost unreadable, because what she could read there was remorse.

Somehow, somewhere, he was lying to her.

He suddenly closed his eye as if he knew it had betrayed him and stood swiftly. "It's too cold out here for you and since you insist on oppressing me, we might as well both go back inside."

Slightly bemused, Sakura allowed herself to be ushered back inside and down the corridor to the room they'd abandoned. She stopped beside her futon, fingers clutching the edge of Kakashi's jacket that still wrapped her in his warmth, but Kakashi slipped straight back into bed with a tired sigh.

"We need to start early tomorrow, Sakura," he murmured, flapping dust off his pillow.

She sat down on her futon, but didn't move. "'Night, Sensei," she whispered in reply, her head buzzing with thoughts and confusion at just that one small look he'd given her. Even after he settled and his breathing levelled out, Sakura remained upright, looking over his form and deadly certain that he was just as awake as she was.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Catalyst_


	3. Catalyst

A/N: If you're wondering about the update schedule of this fic... it should be fairly consistent from now on. I have it roughly drafted up to about chapter 18/19 so far, and the big delay between the prologue and chapter one was because I'd written about three versions of the same chapter. D: This may be a problem sometimes, but hopefully updates will be happening every couple of days.

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Two: Catalyst

* * *

_We talk all night and into the day _

_'Til there's no more to say _

_And when we're all done you say it's been fun _

_But it's better this way_

* * *

Sakura rose with a groggy croak the next morning at precisely the same time as the sun. If it was up to her, she wouldn't have even _dreamed_ of waking up for another two hours at least, but when you were on a mission with Kakashi, you had to accept that there would be some ghastly exercises in self discipline involved. Although this, she thought as she looked at her watch, was clearly criminal.

"Rise and shine," he said, walking around her futon to fling open the screen doors to let the first shafts of early pale light in. Disgustingly, he was already washed and dressed in carefully careless civilian clothes. It made Sakura realise that his habit of being a lazy bastard who often didn't stir from his bed until the afternoon on his off days was actually so that he could do horrible things like get up at four in the morning on his mission days.

Sakura grunted as she rolled out of bed like a bloated walrus and crawled off in search of her feet, and then the bathroom. When she came back she was dressed in similar civilian clothes, although still not entirely too perky for having splashed cold water on her face. She noticed Kakashi sizing her up and remembered the look in that same eye last night. But today was a new day and the opportunity to decipher whatever it had meant had passed. She could also have been reading into nothing, and warned herself not to dwell on it too much.

"You look passable," he said, although he handed her a square scarf. "Maybe you should wear that? Your hair is a bit too noticeable for undercover work."

Sakura dutifully wrapped it around her hair until only a few bangs were visible, and looking in the mirror, she agreed with Kakashi. She looked much more like a plain working girl now. "Ready," she said.

"Let's go then."

They headed down to the slowly rousing town to begin their scoping assignment. Even if it was a small place, it was still too large to cover with just two operatives, so Kakashi enlisted the help of his nin dogs. Under the guise of strays, they also went incognito and split up to monitor different parts of the town.

"Why don't I use my summons?" Sakura suggested brightly. But Kakashi wincingly suggested she not.

"It might cause more problems than it solves," he said vaguely.

She knew in reality he just didn't like her choice of animal.

Predictably Sakura was the one who got stuck in the market next to a particularly stinky fish stall. There she spent most of the day sending unhelpful reports to Kakashi through her intercom, and purchasing sticks of sweet dango to nibble on.

She kept her eyes peeled for anyone who might look out of place. Ninja were often quite distinguishable from civilians, as their movement was uniformly swift and fluid, and they were often more noticeably conscious of their surroundings. With any luck, the Iwa nin she was looking for would be wearing Iwa uniform just to make it easier for her. But as the day wore on and the sun grew high, Sakura grew increasingly bored and pessimistic. Perhaps they'd been stuck with the decoy after all?

"Anything?" she begged Kakashi through the radio.

"Nothing," was the short, terse reply. He sounded as exasperated as Sakura felt, so Sakura didn't ask again. She knew that if he saw something, he would tell her. Until then, all she could do was wander around the streets, keeping an eye on every face she passed until the sun rolled to the other side of the valley completely.

And a girl milling around on her own invariably attracted attention herself eventually. Just as parts of the market were beginning to shut down and Sakura was convening with Scruffy – one of Kakashi's aptly named nin dogs – two boys approached her. They were perhaps a year or two younger than Sakura herself, but incredibly sure of themselves, and though Sakura was glad for the distraction from watching dull crowds, she remained suitably cool towards them, neither encouraging nor discouraging their attempts to impress her.

"Do you work around here?" one of them asked. "I've never seen you before."

"Just passing through with my boss," she answered truthfully.

"What do you trade?" the other guy asked, making the obvious assumption.

She glanced at the stall behind them. "Fish," she said quickly. "Everyone likes fish. There's always a demand for fish."

"Totally," the boys agreed, paying more attention to her bare arms and ankles. Sadly for them, her civilian clothes covered anything else that might have interested them.

But Sakura, in glancing towards the fish stand had noticed something – or rather someone. Immediately she knew this was the Iwa jonin they were looking for; she could tell by the way he stood, and the way he gazed around the market furtively as if looking for enemies the way no other man here would. His clothes may have been plain like hers, but they were too new and he looked far from comfortable in them.

Then there was the Iwa headband covering his forehead. That was always a clue.

The man began to move away from the shade of the doorway he'd been standing in and set off through the crowd. Sakura immediately uttered an apology to the boys and set off in hot pursuit fumbling with her radio. "Kakashi-sensei, I've found him," she whispered, bumping into someone in her effort to keep her eyes locked on the back of the Iwa jonin.

"What?" Kakashi demanded sharply in her ear.

"The rock jonin – I see him."

"Stay where you are, I'm coming."

"No, he's on the move. I'm following him."

"Sakura, _stay_ _where you are_."

"But I'll lose him!" she hissed in protest.

"Sakura!"

What use was an old fuddy-duddy who didn't let you do anything? Sakura pulled the radio out of her ear with an annoyed grunt and shoved it into her pocket. The jonin ahead of her was cutting right across the town square disappearing into a thick crowd of bystanders outside some kind of clubhouse. If she stopped now, she'd lose him for good. The mercenary contact was probably in there, and if Sakura waited around for Kakashi the deal might already have been struck and their targets departed.

So Sakura valiantly surged forth, beckoning for Scruffy to follow. She ploughed into the crowd and looked around vainly in search of the man she'd been following. It wasn't easy. The room was full of men, most of which were inconveniently taller than herself so that seeing over their shoulders was a pain in the ass. Fortunately Scruffy had the scent.

"This way," he said, navigating through between the legs of standing men and tables alike. Sakura squeezed after him, until he led her into what appeared to be a back room.

_There_!

By the wall was her target, talking to another man who looked even more seedy and suspicious! This was it. This was definitely the meeting they'd been sent to intercept. He was reaching out and shaking the mercenary's hand… she couldn't wait any longer. Kakashi just wouldn't make it in time.

"Hey! You! Stop right there!"

At Sakura's shout the room fell quiet and all heads swivelled in her direction. Her target glanced towards her too just a second before she grabbed him by the lapels and threw him onto the floor. As she pressed her knee down on his back to keep him down, Scruffy did his part in cornering the second man against the wall with a series of threatening barks and growls.

"What the hell are you doing?" the man beneath her gasped. "Who are you?!"

"It's me who'll be asking the questions," she snapped, tugging his collar hard enough to choke him while drawing out a kunai to encircle his throat. "You have a lot of nerve showing up in a place like this."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He tried to get up but Sakura only ground her knee harder into his spine until he dropped with a grunt of pain. Strange. For a jonin he didn't seem that strong… and his mercenary friend with unusually scared of dogs.

"What was the purpose of your meeting?" she demanded. "Tell me and I'll let you live."

"We were just… making plans," he gasped.

"What plans?" Sakura pushed the kunai closer. Beads of blood began appearing.

"For the weekend!" the jonin yelped. "I swear! Stop cutting me – it hurts."

Sakura stopped, but more in absolute disgust than mercy. "_What?_"

"Look, I don't know what I've done, but I swear I didn't do nothing!" the man beneath her quailed. "Is this about that girl in Maika? She told me she was eighteen!"

"Pull yourself together, man, you're a jonin!" Sakura snapped. "And your trespassing into fire country territory is considered an act of war."

"Trespassing? But I live here!"

Throughout this people had been looking on in absolute bemusement at the fully grown man being subdued by the pintsize young woman while another was trying to climb onto the table to avoid the snapping jaws of an angry mutt. Now someone new entered the room with three dogs of his own. He took a moment to assess the scene and then with a soft whistle, ordered Scruffy to desist in his terrorising to come slinking back to his master's side.

Sakura didn't notice. "What do you mean you live here?"

"House number twelve, near the orchard. Ask my mom!"

"Don't give me that – you're from Iwa!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Then what the hell is this?" Sakura tugged off the man's hitai-ate and shoved it in his face. "Did you really think I hadn't noticed you walking around with a rock insignia on your head?"

"A what?"

"This little engraving here," she tapped it with her finger, her patience growing steadily thinner. "The thing that looks like two little rocks overlapping – that's the Iwa symbol."

The man stared. "I didn't know that. This guy just gave it to me."

Sakura ground her teeth silently.

"This morning," he continued. "This man handed it to me and said it suited me… that I should wear it. I-I don't know who he was. Big guy. Kinda scary. I didn't want to say no, you know?"

Sakura was debating whether or not to tear the man's head off just for the sake of it when a hand brushed against her shoulder. "Come on. Let's go."

They'd been duped. It wouldn't surprise her if, while interrogating this guy, the real Iwa jonin had managed to slip by unnoticed. He'd clearly been here this morning to set this guy up as a decoy. In all likeliness the meeting was already over with and they'd overlooked it.

Sakura got to her feet slowly. "Sorry," she said unrepentantly to the man on the floor, because if people insisted on walking around wearing enemy paraphernalia, she felt they couldn't complain if and when they got scissor kicked. She only went as far as to help him to his feet before she quickly turned and walked away in tight-lipped dignity. People could stare all they liked and whisper out the corner of their mouths about how this was the reason women weren't allowed in the clubhouse, but Sakura's ears, while normally sharp to the faintest squeak of criticism, were not listening. She pushed her way back through the gathered crowd until she was out in the town square once more.

Kakashi and his canines drifted out after her, and with the speed at which the door was slammed in their wake, it was clear they'd all earned themselves a lifetime ban.

"Someone gave him that headband," she seethed to him over her shoulder. "Someone from Iwa."

"Most likely," Kakashi hummed.

"Which means we missed the targets." How the hell was she going to explain this to Tsunade?

"Not necessarily," Kakashi mused. "This village is particularly close to the earth country border. Places like this tend to have a lot of neutral mixing. They don't have the right climate for rice in the earth country, so you can imagine how often they trade with villages like Jonan."

Sakura stopped and gave him a hard look. "You couldn't have mentioned this before?"

"It didn't seem relevant," he shrugged.

"Relevant? I was jabbing sharp things into an innocent man's neck!"

"No man is innocent. I'm sure he's done something in his life to deserve such retribution." Kakashi cocked his head. "I _did_ tell you to wait."

"If he really _had_ been our target, that would have meant letting him get away," Sakura retorted. "Did you really think I was going to hang back?"

"Have you ever heard of the proverb about rushing fools?" A sharp edge laced his tone.

"Have you ever heard the one about _bite me_?" No one's tongue was sharper than Sakura's.

Three dogs whined anxiously at their feet, and if ever there was a look that encapsulated the phrase 'grow up' it was the one Kakashi was giving her now. He looked about the town square, which was distinctly emptier than it had been a few hours ago, and then up at the fading sky. "There's no point fighting over it; let's just go back to the inn. Whether or not there was a meeting here today, I think it's safe to say we missed it."

Sakura walked beside him sullenly, fuming inwardly more at herself than at anyone else. The thing about Sakura's temper was that it was rarely honed, which made her liable to snap at anyone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby, but this was something Kakashi had come to understand. He never seemed to take too much offence at her cold moods. In a way this made them easier to shrug off.

By the time they reached the narrow rocky steps leading up to the cliff-top inn, she'd calmed a little. "What do we tell Tsunade-shishou?" she asked, still scowling but willing to talk.

"The truth," he said indifferently. "The mission was inconclusive."

A pang of annoyance went through Sakura as they proceeded up in single-file. It was too late to head back to Konoha at this hour, so they now had to spend the night. What a waste this mission had been!

Once at the summit, Kakashi dismissed his summons and a dark-eyed, platinum-haired maid greeted them at the inn's doorway to extend an invitation to supper. Sakura would have accepted like they had the previous night, but Kakashi gave the woman a look of consternation and announced they'd decided to have a quiet night in.

"I don't remember deciding that," Sakura muttered in a low voice as they padded shoeless back towards their room, leaving the maid at the entrance. "I was looking forward to proper food."

"We can send for something," he answered with a shrug.

"Just because you're antisocial doesn't mean _I _have to be," she said. They entered their rented room and the first thing Sakura did was whip the scarf off her head. _Much better._

Kakashi's hand touched her arm softly, making her stop whatever thought was going to spill out of her mouth next. "Why not just stay and have supper with me?"

He'd spent too much time around dogs, because he had that slightly hopeful, slightly pleading, and slightly abused expression down to perfection. Sakura's normal defence was to mirror it, as he was more susceptible to his own tactics than she was, but this time she knew his desire to stay outweighed her desire to go to supper.

Sakura lost the silent warring of expressions and folded her arms. "Fine," she said flippantly. "But I was hoping to commiserate."

"We can do that just fine in here." He strode to a low cabinet against the far well and swung the doors open to gesture inside.

"Sake!" she exclaimed.

There wasn't much else to do in this town to commiserate, so they took a bottle out onto the porch and sat to watch the setting sun. Despite having worked together for eight years, it was rare that they ever had the opportunity to enjoy a private drink together. There had been many times recently, especially with the latest split-team missions, that they'd sat down and eaten together (and she'd discovered he was a finicky eater who ate with his fingers too close to his food) but it wasn't often that they shared a bottle of rice wine.

Kakashi poured out a cup of sake for each of them and Sakura held hers beneath her nose. Then she thought about her constitution for alcohol. "Want something to eat?" she asked Kakashi.

"No," he said shortly.

"Well, I do." Alcohol always sat better with her if she had some food to accompany it, and she didn't feel like hard drinking tonight. "I think I'll just go down to the kitchens to get-"

"No, it's alright, I'll do it," Kakashi said suddenly. "You stay here and I'll get it."

"But… you don't even know what I want," Sakura pointed out, blinking at him.

"Then tell me," he said.

"But… I don't know what's on the menu."

"Why don't you just have what you had last night."

"But… I don't want that again…"

She stared at him as he rapped his fingers impatiently against the wooden floor of the porch. He seemed determined to do this for her, but she couldn't quite see the reason why. Kakashi never went out of his way to do anything remotely resembling a 'favour' for anyone, and it was even joked in the village that Kakashi wouldn't help his own mother up if she fell down the stairs. Not having a mother, it was hard to assess whether or not that statement stood true.

At least she knew that _this_ wasn't right.

"You can come with me?" she offered after a length pause.

His fingers stopped drumming. "Nah, I'm not hungry."

_That obviously wasn't the point!_ she thought in exasperation. He'd already said he didn't want food but he'd offered to run the errand instead of her but declined when offered to go together but–

"Fine. Whatever," Sakura sighed, giving up before she gave herself a headache. "I'll be back in a minute."

"I'll hold you to that." And something about the way he said it made it sound like he really meant it. Like he would come stomping down the corridor to drag her back by the ear if she wasn't back in precisely sixty seconds.

"_Strange man,"_ she whispered to herself as she left the room, knowing he could hear her.

Down the corridors she trotted, in search of the kitchen to place an order. One of the shiny-faced cooks handed her a menu and she quite deliberately took at least a minute and a half in just deciding what to eat.

Kakashi didn't come crashing down the corridor. How disappointing.

Ten minutes later she returned to their room with a simple supper-tray of fried tofu and after digging around in her backpack for a second for a certain object, she took her goodies out to the porch where Kakashi still sat. They glanced over at each other at the same time, and it was one of those rare occasions where they faced one another without a mask between them.

He noticed the book in her hand. "What are you reading?" he asked.

"Naka. You?" She hadn't missed his own book he'd gotten out in her short absence.

"Porn."

"I wonder if we're turning into dull, predictable people?" she sighed as she sat down again. "Well, maybe I am at least. You, I think, were already dull and predictable."

"I'll swap with you," he suggested. "I'll read your damn Naka if you read my porn."

Sakura considered. She was sure he would learn to embrace Naka's romantic side if he just read some of his prose of his own volition, but was she willing to be subjected to porn in the process? Not that she minded porn. She had a few dirty books of her own hidden under her mattress at home, but the rule for girls was that you could be a pervert, _as long as no one found out_. Reading porn in the presence of a witness was just plain taboo.

"I'll pass, thanks." She cracked open her book and then, because she felt Kakashi needed to loosen up a bit, she took a deep breath of fresh mountain air and looked across the yellow sky at the setting sun. "Doesn't this just stir your soul?"

"Don't even think about it."

"I think this calls for a bit of poetry."

"Don't you dare."

"'_My love is my prison, my words are my keys-'"_

She had to stop right then because Kakashi had shoved a lump of fried tofu into her mouth.

"You're right, it does stir _something_," he said breezily as she tried to decide whether to chew, choke or spit.

"It's stuck in my throat…" she rasped. "So dry…!"

He handed over the cup of sake he'd already pouted out for her and she quickly downed large, hefty gulps until the tofu was washed down completely. "Romantic poetry," he told her, "is for girls and repressed homosexuals. No straight man will ever get a kick out of fruity lyrics."

There were possibly _some_ Naka poems that he might be interested in, but Sakura refrained from reciting these out of embarrassment. Kakashi liked to reject her love of Naka's poetry on the grounds that it was all simplistic and rose-tinted and not at all real, but that's only because he didn't know about the _other_ stuff.

"Real love isn't about holding hands and feeling feelings," he went on. "Real love is gritty and dirty and painful more often than it's pure and clean and pleasant."

"You think I don't know that?" she responded contritely. No one could accuse Haruno Sakura of not knowing love. She'd spent most of her life being in love and being ignored, and she knew _exactly_ how agonising and gritty it could be, because it _still_ hurt.

But if he wanted dirty, she could do that too.

Without glancing at her book, she began to recite. "'_The ring which encircles my lover's finger, received with pleasure, slipped over her knuckle there and then to linger. May you fit her as well as she fits me. Rub snugly. Precisely the right size-_'"

"Who is that?"

"It's Naka."

"It's filth." He glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow. "And you know it off by heart."

Sakura glanced away, bring her cup to her lips as her cheeks burned hot. "I didn't even get to the good part."

"I shudder to think."

Sakura staunchly gulped her sake down, more to hide her embarrassment than anything. But of course she'd forgotten it was sake, not water, and she was left gasping and coughing once the alcohol hit her stomach and – what felt like – her brain.

"You shouldn't have done that," he observed, noticing her sway. "Aren't you the one who falls off the bar stool after half a glass of wine, or is that Naruto?"

"No, that's me." She didn't get on well with alcohol, so she conscientiously pushed the cup away and waited for the dizziness to fade.

By contrast, she knew Kakashi well enough to know that he was deceptively sober-looking when tipsy, and usually the only giveaway was a slightly looser tongue and a tendency to smile more often. He wouldn't start swaying dizzily until his fourth or fifth cup. When he was _really_ drunk he'd start giggling, and that was when you had to take him home before he started making ill-advised passes at waitresses.

And then waiters.

However, Sakura couldn't boast herself to be particularly clear-headed right now. The sake had simmered down into a full bodied warmth that left her feeling soft and cheerful. Not tipsy, but with a certain confident sense of well-being that let her know there was an relaxant at work in her veins.

"I'm glad you're feeling better today," she said honestly.

"Hm?" He glanced at her.

"You seemed agitated last night. I thought you were mad at me or something."

He shook his head. "I don't see why I would be. And if I cheered up, it would probably be because you're good company," he said, giving her a faint smile. "Better than most."

There was a soft heat to that smile that she wasn't used to. Disconcerted, she smiled vaguely back and turned her attention back on the sunset, trying to figure out what that smile reminded her of and what it meant. Perhaps he was a little drunk after all. Rarely did Kakashi ever admit out loud that he liked her company. She had always suspected as much, but he'd never vocalise such feelings.

Best not think about it lest she begin to _over_think it.

"Shame about the mission," she breathed.

He shrugged. "That's how it goes sometimes," he said. "You'll miss this when war breaks."

"Probably."

They sat in contemplative silence as the sun slipped away behind the mountains, staining the sky a near blazing orange. Gradually it dimmed, but when Sakura looked at Kakashi, she could still see its reflection in his gaze. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

"War brings regret," he said. His words were almost muffled by the fingers pressing against his lips absently. "The outcome of war may be unpredictable, but what you can always predict is that you will do something you regret. Something you can never take back."

What exactly was he referring to? War crimes? He had none on his record, or at least none that had been recorded. Perhaps it was to more personal mistakes that he referred? "Everyone has regrets," she said, aiming for a placatory tone.

"Is that so?" he said softly. "What are yours then?"

Sakura sat and fiddled with the hem of her cotton shorts. "I suppose… when I was a little girl, I was at the market with my mother. I don't remember why, but I was in a mood. I was sulking, and pouting and glaring, and my mother was trying so hard to cheer me up. She offered to buy me a pack of waterbabies from one of the toy stalls, but I refused."

She fell quiet and after a moment Kakashi glanced at her uncertainly. "And?"

"_And,_" she stressed, "do you know how cool waterbabies were when I was a kid? Everyone wanted them! You put them in water and they changed colour and everything, and if you put a boy waterbaby in with a girl waterbaby, they'd multiple and sometimes even grow plants and stuff. But I was in such a mood that I said 'no' and for ages afterwards I really, really regretted that."

Kakashi stared at her. "You regret… not getting waterbabies."

"Yes. Why? What do you regret?"

It was as if he wasn't sure how to top her epic story of regret. He blinked repeatedly, stared out at the darkening sky, and then said quite slowly. "I regret… getting drunk at Morioka Hana's birthday party when I was sixteen. She gave me all the signals, she even gave me a little kiss, and just as she was about to lead me upstairs, I threw up on her shoes and passed out. She never spoke to me ever again."

Despite his tale of woe, Kakashi was grinning in self-deprecation, and didn't seem to mind too much when Sakura burst out laughing so hard that she nearly rolled over backwards. "That's – you just – oh – ow, my stomach!" she gasped for breath in between wiping away her tears. "Maybe it was a narrow escape, Sensei! A girl who's deterred by a little vomit can't have been worth your time."

"You're too hard on typical girls, Sakura," he rebuked. "You probably clean up vomit every day at that damn hospital so you've been acclimatised to such trauma. Normal girls can't be expected to cope well with such violent displays of… enthusiasm."

"Maybe. She still sounds too fussy."

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking back then." He rubbed his hand through his rough hair and smiled again fondly at his own memories. War and regret had been momentarily forgotten and he was dwelling in happier times.

Of course Sakura had regrets, and serious ones at that which still haunted her. She regretted not being important enough to Sasuke to make him stay. She regretted that she'd been too busy at the hospital saving other people's lives that she'd missed her own mother's deteriorating health until it was too late. She regretted being spiteful to her mother that day in the market because sometimes she'd been a revoltingly selfish child who had hurt her mother's feelings on many occasions, but letting these regrets overwhelm her and drag her into misery was not how anyone should live their life.

And she didn't plan on letting Kakashi do it to himself either. He probably had enough regrets to last several lifetimes, but Sakura preferred him when he smiled and laughed and told embarrassing stories about his youth. Not everyone had to be trapped in their own darkness.

"Toast," Kakashi said, handing her the sake cup.

"To what?" she asked in bemusement.

"Waterbabies and vomit," he said with a straight face, "and Haruno Sakura."

"To waterbabies, vomit and me," she agreed. "Clearly all of equal greatness."

She took a long sip, and then another in an attempt to keep up with Kakashi who seemed to be downing his cup in one go. When she reached the bottom, her head swam and she immediately remembered once again that she didn't drink. "Ooh," she groaned, smiling sheepishly. "We should stop. We have to head back tomorrow, and there's nothing worse than travelling with a hangover."

"Yeah, you're right," he said, even as he poured them both another helping.

In retrospect, Sakura thought she should have known it was a bad idea. Even when missions were an apparent flop, it was never wise to drop your guard. Alcohol was one of the three shinobi sins, after all. Yet some highly susceptible part of her personality thought that if Kakashi was doing it, it couldn't be that irresponsible, as Kakashi was in many ways the very definition of 'sensible'.

That, and it was a singular experience to be able to make Kakashi laugh so easily. It was a pleasure in itself to ply him with more drinks and watch that rigid, taciturn exterior crumble a little. His grins came more frequently, and his gaze lingered with hers a little longer than necessary. Touches were traded freely and casually, but still with a thrill of excitement that puzzled Sakura as much as his smiles did.

When she caught him looking at her again, she smiled and shook her head as if baffled. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he shrugged with a private smile. "I was just thinking how much you look like a hamster when you eat tofu like that."

It was almost a minute more of chewing before she could swallow and reply. "That's one of the most flattering comparisons I've been given."

"Oh?"

"Other kids used to call me spam-head. Billboard-brow. You may not have noticed, but underneath this fringe my forehead stretches all the way up to here," she said, pointing to an improbable place towards the back of her skull.

"Then I should congratulate you on your fabulous comb over."

"Convincing, isn't it?"

He laughed softly. "They were just jealous, Sakura. You're a very beautiful girl and one of the most intelligent I know. I'd be surprised if you hadn't provoked some envy along the way."

The other problem of Kakashi giving praise so rarely was that it was difficult to know how to respond. She turned her face back to the valley, hoping that the dimming sky would mask her blush as she smiled and gave an awkward shrug. "Not everyone picks on others out of jealousy. That's just something victims tell each other to make themselves feel better. In reality, people pick on others because they feel superior to them, whether its physically or mentally. The human instinct to ostracise misfits is stronger than the instinct to ostracise those we admire."

He clicked his tongue. "You'd be happier to believe they did it out of jealousy."

"Were you ever bullied?"

"No. I _was _a bully."

"You still are to most of your subordinates."

"Only unintentionally."

"Well, you seem alright to me."

"Perhaps because you'll beat me up if I'm unkind?"

She wrinkled her nose and bumped her shoulder against his. "I know you're secretly a big softie. I've seen you reading Naka's soppiest poems wrapped up in the dust jacket of a porn novel when you think no one's looking. And I've witnessed the manly tears of emotion roll down your face when-"

"No, that was just a dream you had," he protested.

"What do you know about my dreams?" she asked haughtily.

"I know I'm in them sometimes."

"Doing what?" she asked unwisely. His eyebrows twitched up suggestively and she gasped at him, scandalised. "What – never! I have never – oh, you're so dirty!"

Well, _never_ was a bit of a fib. There had been that one strange night about a year ago when, after spending more than two weeks coddling her sick superior, she'd dreamed of riding him on a hospital bed and had woken up deeply disturbed. Mainly because she hadn't wanted to wake up. However, she'd had sex dreams about most guys she was moderately close to, and even several involving Ino. It didn't mean anything (other than that she was probably a little gay), but now just remembering it in a situation like this made her skin heat with a mixture of embarrassment and something else.

"I'm just teasing you," he reassured.

"You're a bad man," she huffed playfully.

"I thought we just established I was nice to you."

"I take it back; you're irredeemably horrible."

"Big words for a drunk girl."

"No less true," she retorted.

He sighed. "Yeah, maybe…"

When she looked up at him again, she noticed he was staring out at valley again, his expression a little more drawn than a moment ago. Suddenly he rubbed a hand over his brow and closed his eyes, as if something had caught up to him at last.

"Maybe we should call it a night?" she suggested, wondering if perhaps he'd drunk too much.

"I suppose that's best," he said thickly. "Before I do something really embarrassing that you'll hold over my head for the rest of my life."

Was that so? "On second thoughts, would you like another drink?" she asked brightly.

Even Kakashi wasn't drunk enough to fall for that. "Ah hah," he deadpanned as he climbed a little unsteadily to his feet to wander back inside their room. Sakura heard him crash into the door frame at least twice and winced. Yep. A bit too much to drink there…

Sakura herself intended to stay out a little longer herself to enjoy the warm evening and watch the stars come out, but that wasn't to be when a plaintive call rang out behind her. "Sakura-chan! Tuck me in."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, sir," she called back in amusement, and silently she wished goodnight to the sky before turning back into the room.

Kakashi was already sitting down on his futon, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. He didn't need tucking in as much as he just wanted attention. "Here," she said, drawing out a jug from the cabinet and pouring a glass of water. She handed it to him, but he failed to do more than hold it limply, she knelt next to him and guided it helpfully to his lips, forcing him to drink or be covered in water. He ended up doing a little of both and coughed and spluttered while she looked on with a grin.

"You say _I'm _a bad person," he protested, water dripping down his chin. "Why don't you just turn it over my head?"

"Ok," Sakura chirped cheerfully, and tried to do just that.

But even if he was drunken Kakashi's reflexes weren't that dulled, and he reached up at the exact same time to grab the glass and wrestle with her for control. It began tipping dangerously in Sakura's direction. She squeaked and tried to push it back. However, the next thing she knew was that Kakashi was laughing and she was doused in cold water.

Cold water droplets ran down the tips of her hair and into the neckline of her vest. "Ew," she giggled, pulling a face.

She noticed Kakashi smiling softly at her, once again with that strange warm expression in his eyes that seemed so familiar, yet so alien. She trembled slightly, and she didn't think it was the cold water as much as it was excitement of some other kind. "What?" she asked, giving him a shy smile.

"You," he said, as if it was obvious. "You're incredible."

No one had ever really told her she was incredible before – at least not in a nice way. A blush broke out on her cheeks; one which deepened as he outstretched his hand to flick back a wet lock of hair from her cheek.

"Of course I'm incredible," she began to babble nervously. "Why wouldn't I be incredible? I was top in my class, I'm an elite medic, and I'm apprentice to the Hokage, and I can beat the nine-tailed Jinchuuriki with one arm tied behind my back – of course, I'm incredible. I also look good in cold water."

She was nervous because he seemed to be getting closer. He was still holding her wrist from when he'd helped upturn the glass of water over her own head, and his thumb was sliding softly back and forth across the sensitive skin of her inner arm. Tingles swept her spine, making her fall silent as she watched him apprehensively as he watched her, until his heavy eyes seemed to drift down her face to stop at her lips.

"What are you thinking, Kaka-sensei?" she whispered.

He smiled lethargically. "How easy it is to forget things when you're around," he said, and then gently released her wrist to flop down on his back with a sigh. The moment was broken, though Sakura still felt awfully peculiar and warm as she looked down at him stretching and rubbing his eyes tiredly. His shirt had ridden up a little, exposing a sliver of his bare abdomen dusted with light, coarse hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants. It was the most fascinating sight Sakura had ever seen.

"There's always regret with war," Kakashi said disconcertingly. Sakura could see his mind had jumped backwards to a previous line of conversation. "You always lose someone. I lost my mother in the second secret war, my father in the third, along with my friends and my teacher. So you think to yourself, if everyone's dead, it can't hurt, can it? Then _they _come at you from the side and you find yourself back where you started, and all you can do is hope that this time you have the strength to hold it together this time."

"Blah, blah, blah…" Sakura murmured, poking his nose. "You're drunk, sensei."

He caught her hand. "I'll always be here for you, Sakura. I won't let anyone die this time."

She smiled coyly at him, baffled by how serious he looked. "I can take care of myself. What was it you were saying last night about you looking out for your health and me looking out for mine?"

"Don't be too proud," he whispered, closing his eyes. "You don't have to be proud with me."

His hand dropped down next to her knee and Sakura watched his face curiously, realising he was fast drifting off to sleep. "You're not much of a drinking buddy, you know," she told his smooth, impassive face. "Falling asleep on me, jeez."

"I'm not asleep," he muttered, and just to prove it he patted her bottom…

…and Sakura punched him hard enough in the stomach to make him roll over with a pained grunt. "Keep your hands to yourself, you dirty old lech," she reprimanded him sternly. "Just because I'm drunk doesn't mean you get to take advantage of me."

Kakashi remained still and silent.

She leaned over him. "Sensei?" she asked. "Are you dead, sensei?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Oh. What do you want me to say at your funeral?"

"Say that I was awesome and clever. And that I died doing what I loved."

"Ok. But I'm telling everyone that you died making love to a vacuum cleaner."

He groaned. "I wouldn't put it past you. You're cruel, Haruno Sakura."

"And that's why you love me."

"Think what you like," he grunted sulkily.

She bent over and planted a soft kiss on his temple as if she'd never thumped him in the first place. "Nighty night, sensei," she said sweetly. "We've a long journey home tomorrow, so have pleasant dreams."

"I'd wish you the same, but I'd be lying," he rasped, rubbing his abused stomach. Despite the obvious frown he'd contrived, he still wasn't able to hide his sleepy smile.

Sakura crawled into her own futon and shimmied between the cool sheets with a sigh, feeling inexplicably warm and happy, and perhaps only in part due to the sake. When she closed her eyes she saw Kakashi's melting smile and remembered the casual way he'd touched her hair, and then that unguarded slice of his bare stomach. Her heart felt full and she didn't care to analyse why. All she wanted to do was go to sleep to thoughts of him… like if his shirt ridden any higher, would he have possessed an innie or an outie?

A giggle escaped her lips before she could stop it.

"Stop having pervy thoughts about me, Sakura," Kakashi murmured from his side of the room.

"You wish," she retorted sleepily and rolled over to bury her head in her pillow.

* * *

If she had pleasant dreams, she certainly didn't recall them when she woke up. Cold pale light was streaming through the open shoji doors and a dull ache was clogging her sinuses and, as far as she was concerned, her brain too.

"Ow… my poor head," she croaked as she sat up, ignoring the weight of a hangover that would have her stay down.

"That's what you get for drinking on the job," a voice on the other side of the room said, in a tone too sanctimonious for a man who had drunk at least twice as much as she had. She gave him a bleary fish eye, noting he was dressed and washed and reclining in a relaxed way against the wall with the same old Icha Icha book in his hand.

There was no justice in the world. Wasn't it the old farts who were supposed to suffer worse hangovers than the young farts?

Sakura gave him an annoyed grunt and pushed her covers off to totter away behind the modesty screen on wobbly legs. The assignment over and officially a false alarm, she felt no reason not to pull on her regular working clothes again. After disappearing off to the bathroom to sprinkle water on her eyes, it was time to go.

"Ready?" Kakashi asked her when she reappeared.

He was in an undeniably better mood than yesterday, but by then she'd given up trying to figure out what that meant. "Ready," she agreed with a voice of gravel, and together they traversed down to the reception desk to pay their bills.

"Anything from the minibar?" the nasal woman behind the desk asked.

"Just the sake," Kakashi admitted to her. Sakura stood behind him rubbing her temples and sorely wishing they were back home in Konoha already.

"Mm hm," the woman scribbled more charges down on their receipt. "Did you use any other facilities?"

"Well, there was this vacuum cleaner…"

Hoarse laughter suddenly erupted from Sakura while the innkeeper looked at them both in bemusement. "Pardon?" she asked, frowning at Kakashi.

"It's nothing," he said seriously, talking over Sakura's sniggers. "No facilities. How much is that?"

Sakura was still struggling to control her laughter after Kakashi had paid the woman and they stepped outside. The platinum haired maid from the previous evening had been replaced a brown haired maid who gave Sakura a worried look as they passed. "Have you no consideration for my poor head?" Sakura asked him. "Don't tell stupid jokes."

"I only tell them because you laugh like a donkey," he pointed out.

"No, I don't. Not in the slightest," she said, suddenly not at all amused.

They found the road leading out of the town and before long the buildings began to disappear behind trees and cliffs until all they saw were outstretched rice paddies and a distant smudge of the ocean to their right. Even this far inland she could just about smell the salty tang in the air.

"Do you think Naruto and Sai found anything in Chiba?" she murmured to her quiet companion. "It's annoying we didn't find anything, but perhaps it wasn't such a waste of time."

"Hm?" Kakashi glanced at her.

"Fresh air, nice views, two nights in an inn, all expenses paid by Konoha." She shrugged. "We should look at these things like vacations."

He looked away again. "Is that right?" He didn't sound completely convinced.

Sakura gave him a shy, sideways look. "I'm glad I came with you," she said earnestly. He didn't look at her or respond in any way, but she knew she'd surprised him. "You're not bad company."

"Backhanded compliment?" he guessed.

"I mean it," she said. "This mission could have been a complete drag. If I'd come with Naruto, he would have just moaned the entire time. If I'd come with Sai, I'd have killed him by now. I like spending time with you… I guess, that's all I'm saying."

He was quiet for a long time. "I see."

Perhaps she'd said too much or spoken out of turn. She knew he wasn't a man who was comfortable expressing himself, and even less comfortable with other people expressing themselves. It was easy to joke around with him, and hell even _flirt_ with him like she'd done last night with the sake, but when the conversation turned earnest and personal, suddenly there was nothing to say.

He was embarrassed, she could tell, so to spare him she turned away and looked out at the endless plantations of rice. It was enough that she'd gotten it off her chest, and now she could go back to dumb meaningless things like. "How do you suppose they make rice puffs?"

Which was a subject that Kakashi knew far more about than feelings and so could speak far more freely, even if that wasn't saying much.

Sakura was going to have to live with the fact that her superior was always going to be a stand-offish bastard and getting him to talk at all sometimes was a miracle. She had to be grateful for the fact that she'd known him for so long that they could talk with relative ease, and she knew that he spoke to her in a way that he didn't with anyone else, even with people he'd known his whole life. A lot of people said that Hatake Kakashi had no sense of humour, but that wasn't true. It was just that very few people got to see it, and even when they did, fewer people understood it. Unfortunately, Sakura was one of them.

He _was_ good company, once you got used to him. It might have taken a few years, but Sakura could safely say she considered Kakashi one of her closest friends. She really did enjoy these missions alone with him, and she enjoyed how, when he was drunk, he looked at her mouth and touched her skin and even occasionally grabbed her ass. Of course she couldn't let him know she enjoyed it, but it wasn't like this with any of her other friends. She never got the urge to egg them on the way she did with Kakashi.

Towards the afternoon they followed a river down towards a small, but surprisingly busy hub town. Sakura suggested they go around it. Places like this were always crawling with pick-pockets.

"I wonder if they sell aspirin here," Kakashi mused.

Sakura looked at him sideways. "You _do_ have a hangover, don't you?"

"Possibly," he said elusively. "You can go around if you like, but I think I'll go have a look myself. Meet you on the other side?"

"Sure," Sakura didn't particularly care. She just shrugged and they parted ways, Kakashi heading off into the thick crowds of the town and Sakura making her way along a shaded, grassy path leading behind the houses. The sounds of the town to her left and the river to her right accompanied her along the way as the trees thickened. There weren't many people on this path. She passed a couple out for a walk with a child in a pushchair and an old man carrying firewood on his back.

It would be Kakashi's own fault if he emerged on the other side of this town with half his belongings missing. Even elite ninja had trouble with elite pickpockets in hubs like this, enough so that Kakashi would be lucky if he appeared with any clothes left on his person at all. Sakura smiled to herself. _That_ might be a sight to behold.

Glancing at her watch, she realised the day had moved fast. Past this town was nothing but forests and plains which meant another night camping beneath the tree tops. With the hangover bunging her head up, Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to be subjected to that. Perhaps she could coax Kakashi into staying _here_ tonight. Sure he'd say that good shinobi wouldn't complain about spending a night outside, but then she'd just flutter her eyelashes and threaten to talk about 'feelings' again.

Sakura turned her eyes back to the path ahead of her and noticed there was another person walking some way ahead of her, though at half the speed so she was gradually gaining ground. She didn't pay them much mind at first. There were several travellers on this small bypass around a crowded, dodgy town, and he didn't look any different.

Except he did.

From the back, all she could make out was that it was a tall man with long black hair tied back in a messy tail. A merchant? He seemed to have quite a backpack of sorts, but the long tube slotted through the straps began to look more and more like the scabbard of a sword as she grew nearer. A ninja?

There was something uncanny about him. She didn't know if it was the way he was walking or the clothes he was wearing, but something struck her as explicitly familiar. Suddenly she was quite sure she knew the person ahead of her. As if sensing the scrutiny, he turned his head to look back over his shoulder. When he saw her, he stopped dead. Admittedly, Sakura did exactly the same.

Because it wasn't every day you ran into Uchiha Sasuke.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Subject of Guilt_


	4. The Subject of Guilt

**House of Crows**

Chapter Three: The Subject of Guilt

* * *

_I had your number quite some time ago,_

_Back when we were young,_

_But I had to grow._

* * *

"Bottle of aspirin, please miss."

The young woman cheerfully rooted around beneath the counter in order to present the plain white bottle to him. "Anything else, sir?" she asked.

"No," he said absently, looking past her at the shining row upon row of cigarette boxes. His mouth may have said one thing but his gaze clearly said another, and the girl was on to him with the true instinct of a salesperson.

"Cigarettes, sir?" she inquired.

Kakashi sighed. "Sure. I deserve it," he said, pointing out his preferred brand. "And a magazine."

"Which one, sir?"

"Um… whichever has the biggest censor bar across the front."

The shop-girl looked knowingly at his purchases as she rung them up. "Bad day, sir?" she guessed.

"Try three," he sighed, and began counting out the exact change one penny at a time, both to annoy the tutting shoppers lined up behind him and to see if the girl would be too over-faced with the enormous pile of coins to notice he was short-changing her.

She didn't. Dumping all the money into her register, she gave him a bright fake smile. "Next, please."

Stepping out into the street was like walking straight into the middle of wildebeest migration, and one look at that dusty, slow-moving river of bodies was enough to make him realise that Sakura had probably had the right idea about going around the town. Still, it was worth ditching her sometimes since not all life's little mischiefs could be enjoyed when the Queen of Sanctimony was breathing down your neck. So as he set off through the dense crowds, he made sure to stash away the cigarettes and dirty magazine at the bottom of his bag where Sakura was least likely to spot them. He didn't want another lecture from her. It would be bad enough that he was late to begin with. No doubt she was already at the other end of the town, tapping her foot impatiently and thinking up something witty and cutting to say for when he finally showed up.

But with the speed at which the crowd allowed him to move, he was going to have to keep her waiting. Especially when, at one point, he got stranded behind a rolling roadblock of gossipy old women who liked to keep stopping every few metres to turn to one another and talk. It seemed rude to push past them ( and he'd always had a soft spot for cute old ladies), so Kakashi patiently waited for gaps in the surrounding traffic, knowing that every second he dawdled was probably another angry wrinkle on Sakura's forehead.

Another shoulder crashed into his. "Umf – sorry!"

"Sorry," Kakashi said automatically at the same time, having never quite broken out of that early social conditioning to apologise to the one in error, as it was usually his own fault somehow.

The young boy who'd slammed into him quickly continued on his way without appearing to spare Kakashi any further thought. He was in a hurry. Kakashi looked after him for a moment curiously before slowly reaching down to pat the pouch where his money and valuables were contained. Still there. Good, good. He shrugged and continued on his way, sincerely hoping he didn't get mugged before he exited this town. Sakura would never let him hear the end of it.

Of course, when he finally reached the east gate where their road to Konoha continued, she was nowhere in sight.

_Odd,_ thought Kakashi as he paced idly back and forth for a few minutes in case she was just out of sight. There was no way someone taking the shortcut around the town would arrive last, certainly not someone like Sakura whose vice was often that she arrived _too _early.

Oh, well. There was still plenty to do while he waited.

Finding a suitably sheltered spot beneath a tree where he could keep an eye on both the town entrance of the road, Kakashi sat down with a sigh and covertly shook the first cigarette of his new pack from its box. He lit it with a minor Katon jutsu, and with another surreptitious glance about to make sure Sakura wasn't sneaking up on him, he took his first drag.

_Bliss_.

It wasn't his fault and he didn't lapse often. He'd only picked it up in the first place because Asuma had made it look damn cool, as was the weakness of any sixteen year old boy. But then Rin had started complaining about the smell of his clothes and his hair and his kiss and he'd had to stop or else never be able to make-out with her again… as was the other weakness of any sixteen year old boy.

Even after she'd gone, he'd felt no strong desire to restart his 'dirty' habit, as Sakura called it. Only occasionally did he get the urge to taste the smoke again; times when he was low… when missions kept failing and people kept dying. It was odd how sometimes he only needed something small to keep himself from falling apart. Sometimes it was just that one cigarette.

Except he knew that if things kept going the way they were, as with this mission, he'd be a chain-smoker the likes of which would make even Asuma roll in his grave.

Well, at least there were other addictions to feed.

Kakashi reached into his pack. _Naughty Night Nurses Issue #324. _ He handled it like the pages were made from the finest silks as he graciously laid the magazine out on his lap. When he opened it up at the first page, the cigarette nearly fell from his lips.

"Wow…"

'…_Haruka, 18, DD, started training in medicine this year. She's shy but confident in administering the tender loving care her patients need most…'_

Oh, why couldn't Konoha hospital enlist people like lovely Haruka? The last nurse who'd given him a sponge bath had been close to Tsunade's real age and scrubbed needlessly hard at him in delicate places while trying to insist that he should meet her daughter.

The best looking girl who ever sat with him was Sakura, but that was no good because she refused to wear a nurse's uniform despite his frequent morphine-induced requests. And he doubted she'd ever wear anything quite as skimpy as Haruka, 18, DD.

Two older farming women passed him by, scowling ferociously at him, his cigarette, and his ghastly magazine. He cheerfully waved to them and called out, "Evening, ladies," and immediately they turned to one another in loud whispers.

"Southerner," one said.

"I'd never let my Kimi anywhere near a man like that."

"Shameful."

"I know, isn't it?"

Kakashi went back to heedlessly flipping through the pages of his magazine. He was only slightly concerned as to why Sakura hadn't turned up yet, and now that he'd settled down comfortably doing two things he knew she wouldn't approve of, he wasn't in a hurry to see her appear. However, as the minutes ticked by and he grew dangerously close to the last page of _Naughty Nurses_, he did begin to a wonder a little.

Probably just sidetracked, he thought, reaching for the radio buried deep in his pack. Without taking his eyes off the long-legged blonde number on the page before him, he hooked the wires up to his ear and began pressing the intercom button. "Sakura, you there?"

Several seconds passed by, filled with nothing but static. "Sakura, you're late. East gate, remember? Where are you?"

He waited again, but still there was no reply. "Sakura?" He was beginning to feel ignored… and a touch concerned. "Hey, Sakura, is everything ok?"

Suddenly the ocean of static broke. _"S-Sensei?"_

He relaxed. "Where are you?"

"_Um… I'm in the town. There was some stuff I needed to get, so…"_

There was something odd about her voice. Something strained and hesitant as if she wasn't sure what to say. That didn't sound like the Sakura he knew who opened her mouth and said whatever came to mind. Then there was that slight echo as she spoke…

"What stuff?" he asked.

"_Female stuff."_

Ok, he wasn't going to push that one, but her voice was still almost an octave above normal, and _that_ sent alarm bells ringing.

"You ok?" he asked more quietly.

No reply. A long, long pause left the finer hairs along his neck prickling uneasily. _"I'm good. I'm fine," _she said at last, and rather heavily. _"I'll see you in a little while, ok?"_

"Alright."

That seemed to be that. Kakashi unhooked the radio from his ear and let it lie in his lap with the magazine for a moment while he tried to put his finger on what was odd about their interaction. Perhaps it was how she'd used the radio. That echo following her voice could only have occurred if she'd had the radio on loudspeaker, but why would she have used that setting in the middle of town? Sure, the mission was over but that wasn't a reason to relax her guard…

Suddenly bored of _Naughty Nurses_, Kakashi rolled it up and pushed it back into his pack and began searching for the bottle of aspirin he'd bought. That was another odd thing. He was sure he'd put them in his pocket, but now he couldn't seem to find them anywhere. Had he dropped them back in town? Should he go back and-

Oh. Wait.

That shoulder that had smashed into his… and that hand that had brushed by his leg… and that boy who had scampered off like the hounds of hell were pursuing him…

"Ah, shit." Kakashi spat out the cigarette and let his head fall back against the tree. This wasn't his day.

* * *

Haruno Sakura could never be accused of having dull reflexes. Often being the team medic meant being the most alert to attack when enemies targeted you as an easy and convenient picking. Yet there were times when her sharp instincts conflicted with deeper, more personal feelings, and she was left frozen like a doe in the headlights.

This was one of those times. She hadn't prepared herself for this, but even if she'd known six months in advance that she would be meeting Uchiha Sasuke today, she still might been rendered still and silent by the shock of his presence. When Kakashi had reminded her that the last place Sasuke had been seen was in this region, she had hoped… yet she had never truly expected to come across him on this mission. Not in the middle of a country lane along a river. Not on her own.

But perhaps what shocked her the most was his appearance. For four years she'd been carrying around an image in her head of a sixteen year old boy without realising it. Back then she'd looked at him through a girl's eyes and thought he was an adult… but now he really _was_ an adult, and the difference couldn't have been more pronounced. He was tall, his shoulders were broad, his face was elegant without a hint of softness. And his eyes…

…they looked past through her.

She didn't know what to say. What _did _you say in this situation? "Hi?" "How are you?" "Fancy meeting you out here?" Typical pleasantries didn't seem appropriate, and for a long time her mouth hung open, waiting for her brain to reassert itself.

Sasuke frowned, and it was like cracking porcelain. "Well? What do you want?"

Four years.

Four years of dodging and hiding and always being on the run… and _that _was all he had to say to her?!

"I know you're there," he said again, and she realised his body wasn't the only thing that had changed. His voice had too. "If you think I can't see you just because you're keeping quiet, think again."

It seemed an odd thing to say when he was looking straight at her. Of course she wasn't trying to hide! She would have started running away by now if that was the case. "Sasuke-kun," she breathed, taking a step towards him. "It's me."

His head turned ever so slightly to the side and his frown deepened. "Who is that? How do you know my name?"

Now it was her turn to frown. "How many girls with pink hair do you know?" she demanded. Granted, she'd probably changed a little too in their years apart, but that was no excuse not to recognise her. Not when people who had known her as an infant still came up to her sometimes on the street to introduce themselves as her babysitter/former neighbour/long lost postman. Most people would call her downright unforgettable.

She saw the moment he remembered. His face smoothed out again to something more resembling of surprise, and he uttered something that had once made her heart flutter to hear him say it. "Sakura…"

"Of course!" she said haughtily. "Don't tell me you _forgot _me."

It was strange how his gaze still seemed to go beyond her, looking at her but not meeting her eyes. Slowly he turned and continued walking the forest path as if there'd been no interruption at all.

"Hey!" she shouted.

"Go home, Sakura," he called back over his shoulder.

"Wait!" She hurried after him. "Aren't you even a little-"

He spun, and suddenly the slim tube slotted through his straps was half unsheathed and there was no mistaking it for anything other than a sword. "Sakura," he said, looking into the trees, though his hand was steady on the katana's hilt. "I am not interested in complying with anyone from Konoha, and if you persist… I will kill you."

At least he was clear about it. Sakura stopped short and wondered what next to do. Where her mind had been frozen before, it now raced for a way around this ugly, confrontational wall between them. How did you reach out to someone who despised you. "But I'm not talking to you on Konoha's behalf," she said. "Sasuke-kun, you're my friend. I don't want to fight…"

"The last ANBU squad that tried to track me down," he began steadily, "went home a man short, if I recall."

She swallowed hard. "I'm not here to capture you," she told him. "I couldn't, even if I wanted to. But it's been four years, you know. Aren't you even a little curious…?"

"About what?" The hand on the katana was relaxing slightly; an encouraging sign that boosted Sakura's confidence.

"About me, about you… about everything?" she said hopefully. "I missed you, Sasuke-kun."

"Stop calling me that."

Sakura looked at her former teammate uneasily. "What?"

"Sasuke-_kun._ It's simpering, the way you say it. I thought you would have grown out of it by now." The sword clicked back into its sheath entirely and once more he turned away to resume his journey, though this time his pace was slower.

He didn't invite her to accompany him openly, but since he wasn't forbidding it, she tentatively began to follow him at a close, yet respectful distance. From this angle she might have mistaken him for his own brother if she hadn't known he was dead. The similarities were uncanny. Even if they weren't brothers whose facial similarities were all that obvious at first glance, there was an identical kind of air about them that would leave no one who had met the two in any doubt that they were related.

But even as she thought about how much he'd matured in what felt like so little time, Sakura wondered how she appeared to him. Did she look grown up? Beautiful maybe? Sexy even?

It was hard to say, since he didn't seem to want to look at her. He had yet to even meet her eyes.

"Did you come here looking for me?" he asked.

Sakura's fingers compulsively flexed in the fabric of her half-skirt, giving away her anxiety. "No… I know you were last sighted around here, but that was weeks ago. Everyone believes you you've moved on. The only reason we're here is because of a mission; we're on our way back right now."

"So Naruto's with you?" he deadpanned.

"No. He's on another mission," she said.

"I see."

Was that a note of disappointment or indifference she heard?

"Your mission… it wouldn't happen to have anything to do with Iwa, would it?" he asked.

Sakura frowned. It wasn't like the tensions between Iwa and Konoha were a big secret, but he was an enemy of the leaf village and so definitely not privy to the details of even the lowest ranking mission. He wasn't even an enemy due to a technicality, such as a typical deserter would be declared. He was someone who explicitly and fervently wanted to see Konoha and everyone in it exterminated.

It was hard to know if he still thought that all these years later. Even so, she opted for a vague, uncommitted answer. "Maybe."

"Iwa and the Syndicate. Am I right?"

Sakura looked at him sharply. Now _that_ was top secret information. "How did you know that?" she demanded.

He turned his head towards her, but his gaze remained fixed somewhere in the middle distance. "I may be blind," he said with a faint smile. "But I'm not deaf, Sakura. I've heard people talking."

Sakura stopped dead on the beaten track. "Oh," Sakura whispered, her fingers creeping over her mouth in acute shock and embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise."

He stopped as well and looked back at her, though now the reason why he stared through her was all too obvious. She'd heard that was an inevitability for mangekyou users, and though she knew Sasuke had been showing the same symptoms as Kakashi and Itachi before him, she had no idea it had advanced that far.

To be blind and all alone… Sakura couldn't imagine living that way.

"Did your mission succeed?" he asked her.

How could he be so calm about it? Sakura had never felt so wretched in her life, and if she hadn't been so scared of him, she might have started to cry and tried to hug him. It just wasn't fair. Why was life so cruel to those who had suffered most?

"Your mission?" he prompted again, more impatiently. "Did it succeed?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Liar."

"I'm not a liar, it's the truth," she said, and as she said it she quietly raised on hand and timidly waved four fingers at him.

"Your voice gets higher when you lie," he pointed out. "And stop that."

She dropped her hand sharply. "Stop what?" she asked innocently. Had he developed bat hearing since going blind, or did he still have some vision left? She wished she could examine him, but she didn't dare ask.

"So you've found nothing on this mission," he said, and this time as he began to walk, Sakura kept pace beside him. "You surprise me, I guess."

"Well if you know so much about Iwa and the Syndicate, why don't you tell me about it?" she cajoled. "I feel like I'm chasing my tail with all these missions."

"Why would I want to do that?" he asked flatly.

"Because," she struggled for a reason. "We… go way back."

"But you're forgetting that you work for Konoha, and if I help you, I help that village. That's something I can't do."

"Aren't you sick of being out here on your own?" she asked, gesturing at the unfamiliar world around them. "Konoha isn't the same as it was twelve years ago. There's still a place for you there. Isn't that better than being some homeless bum roaming around the hills?"

"There's still a place for me in Konoha?" he mused. "In a prison cell, you mean. You want me to trade freedom for captivity?"

"For redemption," she rebuked. "You killed people, Sasuke… and you plotted to murder innocents. You have to answer for that one day."

"You've killed people too, Sakura," he said. "The only difference between me and you is that we did it under the orders of different people. So why should I be the one who has to be held accountable?"

"Well…" Once again she struggled to think of a response. She supposed he was right, but she didn't know if cared to recognise the difference in following orders from a recognised state and following orders from a small guerrilla group of criminals bent on creating a world of unending war, and by association, war profiteering. Although, she thought with a dreary sigh, war seemed to be a frequent inevitability for most people, with or without the help of a group like Akastuki.

Sasuke took a turn down a second path leading away from the one that continued round the village. It was one that sloped sharply downwards and ahead she could see it met a small stone bridge leading over the river running beside them. Sakura hesitated. "Is this the right way?" she called uncertainly. He was blind after all…

"I don't know where you think we're going," he retorted.

She had to follow him, or else he would leave her behind without a care in the world. With an unhappy sigh she hurried down the sloping path and caught up to him just as they were beginning to cross the bridge.

Right then, Sakura's bag began emitting hisses and crackles as the radio came to life. _"Sakura, you there?"_

It was almost as if he'd sensed the very second she'd put a single toe outside their agreed route. Not for the first time, she wondered if Kakashi was a touch psychic…

Her gaze jumped to Sasuke apprehensively. He'd stopped and turned towards her with a slight frown as one hand moved back to the hilt of his sword. "So you're here with him?" he murmured. "Now I see…"

The radio crackled again. _"Sakura, you're late. East gate, remember? Where are you?"_

Sakura reached for her back. "If I don't respond he'll think something's wrong-"

She stiffened when her hand was suddenly knocked away by the hard scabbard of Sasuke's sheathed blade. He moved so quickly and struck with such accuracy that she again began to doubt he was _totally_ blind. There was still something unnerving about the way his face turned to hers but his eyes didn't focus.

"He might be right to think that," he said softly.

"He'll come looking…" she warned. "And he won't want a nice little chat like me. He'll want you dead and tied in a bow for the Hokage."

The radio spoke more urgently. _"Sakura?"_

She gave Sasuke a pleadingly look. "I have to answer."

"_Hey, Sakura, is everything ok?"_

Sasuke let his sword drop. "Fine. But tell him nothing, and keep it on loudspeaker," he told her shortly.

Sakura scrambled through the contents of her bag to pull out the handset of the radio. "S-Sensei?" Damn, her voice had broken.

"_Where are you?" _he demanded, probably unused to being the one kept waiting.

"Um…" she hedged, looking up at the impassive Sasuke. "I'm in the town," she lied. "There was some stuff I needed to get , so…"

"_What stuff?"_

"Female stuff." If there was one way to deflect male curiosity, it was to warn him he was about to step into female hygiene territory. Predictably, he dropped the subject like a hot potato and instead asked, _"You ok?"_

Not really, but she had to lie, and he needed to believe her, because if he didn't there was no telling what Sasuke might do. She didn't want him to leave if Kakashi decided to appear, but she wasn't sure she wanted him to stay either. He wasn't a little boy anymore. Naruto had said he wasn't quite right in the head since their last confrontation, and even if he seemed calm and collected now, she wasn't going to trust him to remain that way.

"I'm good. I'm fine," she said heavily. "I'll see you in a little while, ok?"

Another uncertain pause. _"Alright."_

The hand holding the radio dropped to her knee. She stared at its clunky buttons and thin wires and felt oddly reluctant to set it aside. It felt like her one connection to Kakashi, and right now, she didn't want to let that go. "It's funny," she began softly.

"What?" Sasuke asked bluntly.

"You don't want Kakashi to know you're here… but you didn't react like that when you saw me."

"That's easy," he said, turning away. "You're not going to do anything stupid."

"Like what?" she wondered.

"Like try to capture me," he said evenly. "Of all the people I've ever known, you at least understood your own limitations. In a way that's less annoying than other people who'll try and try again until they're humiliated."

Sakura's face grew hot. He was talking about Naruto and normally she would kick anyone who dared suggest his stubbornness to keep fighting even in the face of extreme odds was remotely 'annoying'. However, this was Uchiha Sasuke. You didn't go kicking someone like him unless you could run very, very fast. "My limitations have changed since you left," she said proudly. "I'm an A class fighter, and _you're_ blind."

He turned slowly back to her, face impassive as ever. "Are you saying you think you could kick my ass?"

"What? Well, no. Maybe." She thought for a moment. "Actually, yes, I could! So there!"

She could have sworn the ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "That's nice. But I wasn't saying you wouldn't attack me because of your _physical_ limitations."

"Then what were you saying?" she asked, scowling at him.

"You still love me, don't you?"

Something inside her shrank almost painfully. This was probably what it felt like to be _Kakashi_; thrown into the spotlight and unsure what to do the moment someone struck out and dragged the core of her feelings onto the table. It wasn't right than anyone should speak so bluntly of the things others guarded so closely, and she found herself echoing what Kakashi had said after she'd teased him with a similar line last night when they were tired and drunk. "Think what you like," she whispered.

He stalked towards her with enough intent to make her wonder if she should retreat. Before she could decide what to do, he'd already grabbed her by the arm. She struggled, her feet slipping on the moist gravel of the bridge… then she realised he wasn't making any more threatening moves. His large hand spanned the entirety of her wrist easily and totally, and she could feel her pulse thudding away beneath his fingers. No doubt he could too.

"I don't blame you," he said, and he was close enough for her to feel his body heat. "A child can't be responsible for the world its born into, and it shouldn't shoulder the crimes and poisonous doctrines of those before it. That's why you don't need to fear me. My grudge was never against you and I have no desire to hurt you."

"Ok," she said, a little tightly.

"But I pity you," he went on, closing his unseeing eyes. "You've no idea what kind of war your village has dragged you into. You don't even know what you're looking for."

Sakura watched him, tense but silent. If she could glean any information out of him about Iwa or the Syndicate, she at least might be able to go home with her head held high for her Hokage.

"Why did your mission fail?" he asked her.

She shrugged stiffly. "It was probably false information."

"It wasn't false," he said tersely. "You just didn't realise what you were up against. Or rather, _who _you were up against."

He knew. He had to. "Who?" she whispered. "How do you know so much?"

Instead of responding, his free hand reached up to touch the rough pads of his fingers against her soft cheek. The pulse in her caged wrist leapt. "Are you frightened," he asked.

"No." It was almost true.

"Then why is your heart racing?" he asked.

"I-I'm nervous… I haven't seen you in a while." At least she thought this was true enough.

"Neither have I," he retorted. "What do I look like?"

She looked at him uncertainly. His face was… undeniably handsome, classically so, and all the more obvious now he was reaching his prime. It was the kind of face that all women everywhere would give a second glance if they passed him in the street, even if his eyes were dead and dulled. However…

"You need a haircut," she told him honestly.

"I used to do it myself-"

"I could tell."

"-but that's no longer a good idea, and I wouldn't trust a stranger with a sharp knife near my head."

Still paranoid, at least. "Well… I'm not a stranger," she pointed out. "I could do it for you."

Sasuke said nothing as he considered.

"Maybe in return you could tell me what you know about my mission?"

"I told you," he said, dropping her wrist to pull away from her. Suddenly Sakura felt she could breathe just that much more easily. "I'm not going to help Konoha."

"At least you as good as confirmed the Syndicate exists," she said.

"Of course it exists." And he aimed a look towards her that reminded her of the old days when he thought she'd said something stupid, which she probably had. "The Syndicate's one of the oldest… it's been around since before Konoha. And that's the point isn't it?"

"Is it?" she echoed uncertainly.

An unpleasant sneer marred his face. He didn't look so handsome now. "There are more bodies lining the foundations of Konoha than the Uchiha clan," he said. "That'll become apparent to you."

"Are you saying… the Syndicate has a history with Konoha?" Sakura guessed . "I thought they were just a loose-knit bunch of criminals. We've never engaged them before."

"Yes, that's what they are. But at the heart of it is another beast. One that hates Konoha almost as much as I do."

Inexplicable pictures of toothy tigers and rabid mountain dogs flashed through her mind. She was never much good following metaphors. "Meaning…?"

"If I say anything more you'll just take it back to the Hokage. I'm only telling you this much because _you_ should know, because it affects you more than you realise."

"Why would that be?" she demanded. "Are you… are _you_ in the Syndicate."

He smiled, but shook his head. "The enemy of my enemy isn't always my friend."

That was probably a 'no' then.

For a moment Sakura stood awkwardly, wondering what next to say. Should she push him for more about the Syndicate or Iwa, or would that be pushing her luck? If anyone from Konoha knew she was here talking to Sasuke without a weapon drawn, her hide would be fair game for tanning. Tsunade would be furious. She didn't know what Kakashi would think…

Sasuke's hand moved behind him to unsnap the button of a pouch. When it reappeared, it was holding a kunai.

"Whoa, wait…" Sakura stared at it apprehensively. _A bit funny in the head_, that's what Naruto had told her. _Why did I let my guard down?_

"Catch," he said, and threw the short blade to her.

Sakura snatched it out of the air instinctively and examined it dubiously as he crossed over the bridge and sat down in the grassy verge.

"Well?" he called to her. "I'm not waiting all day."

"What?" she murmured defensively.

"Are you going to cut my hair or what?"

She gazed at him with wide eyes. "You… trust me?"

"Like I said… I have nothing to fear from you. Not while you're still in love."

Once again his blunt statement left her cold and uncomfortable. Perhaps it was because he didn't have the right to be so certain about her feelings toward him.

Perhaps it was something else.

"Alright," she said, moving to sit behind him. Because of the sloping bank, it gave her a great vantage point over him. "But don't blame me if this goes wrong."

"It's not like I really care."

Being a kunoichi rather than a hair stylist, Sakura wasn't sure exactly where to start. It was probably easier to do this kind of thing with a pair of scissors, but she unfortunately hadn't had the foresight to pack a pair, knowing she was going to bump into an old childhood friend cum village traitor who was suffering split ends.

It couldn't be too difficult though, she thought. And so she grabbed an arbitrary lock of his hair and razed it off.

Ok… too short. She was learning.

"I've never done this before," she admitted belatedly.

"I could tell," he responded dryly.

She smiled to think he at least still had some semblance of humour. "Naruto's growing his a little longer these days," she told him, hoping he might be interested to hear about their mutual friend. "I'm not sure if it's laziness or he's gotten carried away with all these people coming up to him and mistaking him for the Yondaime Hokage. They really do look alike, I suppose. I mean they always did, but sometimes even I catch a glimpse of him out the corner of my eye and I get confused."

"Is he Hokage yet?" Sasuke asked her.

"He says he's not ready. He's more interested in finding his way onto the front lines when the war starts. He's determined to be a war hero now."

"No such thing."

"That's what Kakashi-sensei says…" she sighed. "He's still the same, by the way. I don't think he'll ever change – his hair, his clothes, whatever. Though I think he's started to take up smoking. I'm a little concerned about that."

"He always smoked," Sasuke told her.

She slashed away another clump of hair. "He never," she said sternly.

"Of course he did. All that 'I have many hobbies' crap… and I have my doubts that it was always tobacco."

Sakura gasped. "You mean…"

"He was always a bit vacant, wasn't he?"

If it wasn't Sasuke, she might have suspected she was being teased. Nevertheless… "Well, he was young back then too. He's much more mature these days."

"I thought you said he hadn't changed."

"Well if he ever did drugs, he certainly doesn't now. I'm the one running his toxicology screens, so I would be the first to know. If he so much as drinks a cup of coffee, I'd find out about it."

This seemed to confuse him. "You're… a doctor now?" he asked.

"Medic-nin."

"Are you any good?"

"I'm the best!" she declared. "I'm the only reason Naruto's still alive. And Kakashi-sensei for that matter."

He said nothing more, and Sakura found herself concentrating too hard on her task to make idle conversation anymore. This haircut was shaping up to look quite good, actually. Just another little cut here, and one there… it may not have been perfectly even, but she told herself that was fashionable these days.

It was a shame he was blind, or he might have been compelled to compliment her work.

Finally satisfied that she should stop before she did any serious damage, Sakura sat back with a sigh to announce her completion. "There," she said, holding the kunai out to him. "All done. I think it suits you."

He reached slowly to take the kunai, but before she could draw away, his hand seized hers. "You've changed too," he said, his fingers running along hers. "Your hands are rough."

She tried to draw away again, embarrassed to have that pointed out. It was hard to be a serious kunoichi _and_ maintain soft supple skin. She'd handled all kinds of weapons every day until her hands had bled and healed and bled again. Now her calluses could match any man's, though she hoped no one noticed. It's not like rough hands were what men liked in their women…

"I never thought you'd ever take your work seriously enough to change your hands," he said.

"I take plenty of things seriously now," she said, noticing he had yet to release her hand. She wasn't sure what it meant, and though it felt odd and a little awkward, she didn't really want to pull away. Not yet anyway.

But he seemed to have nothing more to say, and Sakura felt the silence between them even more awkwardly than his fingers around her own. "I missed you," she blurted out. "I mean, everyone misses you… but I… it's never been the same since you left."

"Sakura…"

"It's the truth," she said quietly.

He shook his head. "I can't come back."

"I know…"

"And I can't stay any longer," he went on, "since you're not here alone."

This time she only nodded unhappily.

"It was interesting to meet you again, but I need to continue on my way."

"Don't you need help?" she asked. "Like… a stick? Or a dog, maybe?"

"I've managed pretty well so far, don't you think?"

"But… I wish I'd been there for you before, when it happened," she murmured, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her skirt.

"I'm glad you weren't," he returned darkly and began to stand up.

He was going to leave. There was nothing she could do to stop him, but…

"Wait!" she said, surging to her feet after him. He turned back to her half expectantly, half indifferent. The speech centre of her brain jammed again and she found herself clamming up, her hands caught in her pockets awkwardly as she tried to free them. She'd spoken on impulse but she'd discovered she probably didn't have the guts to go through with it.

"What?" he asked.

"Can I…?" she began haltingly, twiddling one of the rings around her fingers anxiously. "Um… don't freak out or anything at what I'm about to do, ok?"

"What are you-"

His uncertain inquiry was abruptly cut off as the next moment Sakura had stepped close and slipped her arms around him to hold him as tightly as she could. The warmth was incredible. His clothes smelt musty and old, but that was comforting in its own right since these were no one else's clothes but Sasuke's. And the heart thudding irregularly fast against her own breast was Sasuke's and Sasuke's alone. After all these years and all this searching, he was here in her arms, surprisingly human and deceptively ordinary.

How on earth was she supposed to let go?

"I'd do anything to have you back," she whispered, slightly ashamed at the tears leaking from her eyes. Blind though he was, he would still feel the dampness against his shoulder.

"I'm not coming back," he repeated dully.

"I know," she said pulling back slightly to face him. "But I can't help but wish things were different."

"They're not."

"I _know."_

Did he realise how close they were? How her nose was almost touching hers? Down here on the grassy verge beside the bridge, they were terribly secluded. No one walking down the path around the village could see them here, and she doubted even anyone crossing the bridge above could either. The deep orange light of the evening was dappled against the surface of the river, and beautiful lilies were growing along its banks. But he couldn't see any of this, could he?

Sakura closed her eyes and shut it all out, and the world seemed to shrink till all she could be sure off was the person she held onto.

"Sasuke, is it ok if I do this?" she whispered as she tentatively tilted her head up till her lips brushed against his. It was only a soft touch, testing the waters to find his reaction. When there was none, she pressed against his mouth more firmly, leaving him no room to doubt what she meant.

It was the nerviest thing she'd ever done, and she waited with a pounding heart to see what he might do. The last time she'd seen someone kiss him, he'd promptly pounded their face in… though granted that had been Naruto, and he had been twelve. Surely he might be a little more open to a kiss from a girl now that he was a twenty year old man.

He didn't move for the longest of times. Then gradually she felt his fingers ghosting along the back of her neck, through the tips of her hair. His mouth met hers again, more fully and forcefully than before, and that was when she knew he'd given in.

As her own hand reached to coil behind his head she felt triumph.

And not a small amount of guilt.

* * *

"…_I can't help but wish things were different."_

"_They're not."_

"_I know."_

Outside the east gate stood the lone figure of a man leaning beneath a streetlight. Even when it flickered to life above his head to signal the end of the day, he didn't move. Anyone passing him along the road might have seen his closed eyes and folded arms and imagined he was dozing on his feet (perhaps a poor rogue nin without the money to rent a room for the night) as long as they didn't notice the wire trailing from his ear.

"_Sasuke, is it ok if I do this?"_

Kakashi reached into his pocket, and with a soft _click_, the radio was switched off. Communication back-hacks had their occasional use, but overhearing some things was just a pain in the ass.

"Such disobedience," he murmured as he pushed away from the lamppost and stretched his arms till his shoulders popped. There was going to be trouble, as there inevitably was in these cases. Reports would have to be made, Hokages would have to be informed, discipline would have to be meted... bodies would have to be buried in discreet places…

Kakashi had known from the start this would be a mission more trouble than it was worth.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Her Body Language_


	5. Her Body Language

**House of Crows**

Chapter Four: Her Body Language

* * *

_Every day, keep making the same mistakes,_

_Once again, I find myself in the same old place,_

_And I'm wandering, wondering where to turn,_

_There's a dead end, straight ahead._

_Won't you take me home?_

* * *

"…three further spies confirm the movement of Iwa's forces. They're definitely closing in on the border, Hokage-sama. We've lost contact with a fourth."

Tsunade regarded the large tabletop map before her with a near bored expression. The map itself was covered with a bolted pane of glass, and on this glass lay scribbled notes and numbers and troop positions and agent codenames, dotted around on a fine layer of smudges and fingerprints. Every red cross was a lost contact. There were three in total now, all disappearing in the past week alone.

"Who?" she asked Shizune, who stood on the opposite side of the glass map.

"His codename was Blackhammer," Shizune said evenly, though she added in a quieter voice, "It was Ukyou."

A heavy sigh escaped Tsunade's lips as she unsnapped the cap of her pen and added yet another cross over a mark within the earth country. "How many do we have left?"

"We still have twelve, but no one near the top of the Iwa command chain," Shizune informed her, consulting her latest notes. "We've rooted out two of their spies around fire country outposts this week, but their information would have us believe that some of our highest ranks have been infiltrated."

"Propaganda," Tsunade said shortly. "At least, I hope. Unless you have something you want to tell me about your true allegiance, Shizune."

The younger woman gave an awkward little laugh. "I suggest we don't leak that info beyond this room. It'll harm morale."

"That goes without saying," the hokage agreed, and she turned away from the map as if the sight of it was giving her a headache. She moved instead to the window and stood glowering at the mountainside where her stone face glowered back. "Who do we have to spare right now?"

"Uh… well, the punctual half of Team Kakashi arrived back yesterday-"

Which was probably the half that didn't included Hatake Kakashi. "Naruto and Sai, huh? Send them after Blackhammer and get them to find out what's happened to him. They'll need to dispose of his body to hide the secrets if necessary."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Shizune made a note.

"Anything else?"

"The not-so-punctual half of Team Kakashi is waiting in your office to be debriefed," Tsunade's aide told her.

"A _day_ late, huh? That's a bit much, even for Kakashi. They were on the same mission as the other two, weren't they? Was their target further away or something?"

"No, the town of Jonan is actually _closer_, I think." Shizune said hesitantly. "And, um, I'm not sure the mission went well."

Tsunade turned to look at her. "What do you mean?"

"I… I think you'll probably see for yourself when you meet them."

"Well, now you've gone and poked my curiosity," Tsunade sighed. "They're both alive, aren't they?"

"Well, yes-"

"Then it can't be too bad." The Hokage stopped and looked around the quiet war room. At the moment it was empty save for herself and Shizune, but probably by next month bigger operations would be taking place in here as the war grew. At the moment there was little happening than a lot of movement and a lot of disappearing spies.

She shook her head and beckoned her hand. "Come on, let's get on with it then."

As they descended down the stairs leading to the Hokage's office, Tsunade prepared herself to face the inevitable dregs of a team whose mission had gone wrong. Torn clothing, dirty faces, perhaps a few tears… they were all the usual indicators that something had not unfolded as planned. So when she opened the door to her own office and looked in at the two occupants, she was slightly surprised at what she found.

Kakashi was stood near her desk, playing with her potted plant by the looks of things, though nothing about his appearance seemed out of the ordinary. In fact, he looked as he did any day; like he'd gone to sleep last night in his clothes and hadn't bothered to change yet.

For a moment Tsunade was about to ask where Sakura was, until she spotted the girl standing next to the wall, having apparently been in the middle of scrutinising some hanging pictures. What was odd about her appearance perhaps was that she looked the same as Kakashi… and even on missions Sakura always made an apparent effort to keep her clothes and face fresh. Right now though, it was clear she'd had a night or two on the fly.

"Afternoon," she greeted the two as she found a seat behind her desk.

"Afternoon, Hokage-sama," Kishi greeted with an informal salute.

"Afternoon, shishou," said the wall. Tsunade had to blink in its direction to ascertain it really was Sakura who'd spoken. The girl had barely moved her lips.

_Ah_, Tsunade thought as she reclined in her chair and regarded the 'not-so-punctual' half of Team Kakashi. Something was wrong, that was clear enough just as Shizune had said. Her aide was looking at her meaningfully from beside the door, and Tsunade gave a faint nod to let her know that she'd noticed it too.

It perhaps wasn't solely the fact that Sakura was pretending to be part of the furniture that set the alarm bells ringing. It was that Kakashi was so implacably ignoring it. Ignoring _her_.

"Tell me good news," Tsunade ordered.

It rarely did much good. Kakashi gave a pleasant smile behind his mask. "I'm afraid, Hokage-sama, the mission was as we expected. We didn't gather any conclusive information one way or another."

"So the mission was a decoy after all then, huh?" she asked.

"Yes, it seems that way."

Sakura, frowning deeply, made a soft sound as if she wanted to add something. Tsunade looked at her expectantly, but so did Kakashi and one glance at her team leader rendered her mute again. Her face turned back to scrutinise the framed pictures and Kakashi refocused his attention on Tsunade, with that same fixed smile from before.

Did he think she was an idiot?

No one bullied Sakura into silence with one look. No one _could_! And if Hatake Kakashi thought for a second that the girl's own master wouldn't notice, he was sadly mistaken. "Sakura," Tsunade called, "is that your report as well?"

Just by addressing her, Tsunade felt the tension in the room raise palpably. For a second no one moved, not even Shizune who have been halfway through scratching an itch on her nose. And even though it was Tsunade who had asked the question, it was Kakashi to whom Sakura initially looked before she answered. "We arrived at the village in time for the rendezvous, but we didn't see or hear anything unusual, so we came back."

"And why are you a day late?" Tsunade asked.

"Um," Sakura looked at the floor. "We got lost."

"The signposting around the north-westerly provinces is terrible," Kakashi said cheerfully.

"And that's it?" Tsunade asked incredulously. There was clearly more going on beneath the surface here than was being admitted.

Sakura bit her lip. "Well… actually…"

She broke off once again the second Kakashi turned to level a hard stare at her. The girl squirmed and averted her gaze, but she clearly had something she needed to say. Not even the Copy Ninja's most terrifying stare could totally cow her.

"Actually _what_?" Tsunade pressed. Sakura was the weak link here, and she was going to be pressed.

"Um… there was an incident-"

Kakashi interrupted her. "There wasn't-"

"Yes, there was-"

"There was no incident, Hokage-sama."

"I attacked someone in the town. He had an Iwa headband-"

Kakashi sighed. "That's of no interest to anyone."

"He said someone gave it to him-"

"There are Iwa traders in that town all the time. It didn't mean anything."

"Then why did he tell me that we only failed because we didn't know who-"

"That _wasn't _a reliable source."

The exchange ended as abruptly as it had started. Tsunade blinked at the pair in surprise. The hostility between them was difficult to miss, and these were two people who had, as far as Tsunade was aware, always been on friendly terms. Perhaps even a little too friendly sometimes. Sakura could be an extremely charming girl to those she liked, but it hadn't gone unnoticed to Tsunade that she often charmed her superior a little harder than most. Occasionally it worried her, but the Hokage was forced to admit that Kakashi was as blindingly oblivious to it as Sakura was herself.

Now, however…

"I think a little R and R may be in order for the two of you," she mused. "Seems we've had a little falling out now, haven't we?"

Both teammates at least now had the decency to look ashamed.

"If the mission was inconclusive, there's not much we can do. You're both dismissed until I can think of something else to do with you," she told them.

Sakura almost visibly relaxed with relief. "Yes, shishou," she said, moving towards the door at a speed that some might call 'fleeing'.

Kakashi took a step in a similar direction, but Tsunade cleared her throat. "Kakashi, can you stay behind a moment. There's another mission I'd like to discuss with you."

Suddenly Sakura didn't seem quite so keen to escape. She hesitated by the door, looking anxiously between her sensei and her shishou. "Shouldn't I be involved too?" she asked uncertainly. It was clear from the look on her face that she knew what Tsunade was up to.

"No. You can go," the Hokage told her shortly, making it clear that it wasn't a suggestion.

Yet still she stalled. "Sensei…?" Sakura began.

"It's ok, Sakura," Kakashi said lightly. "You can go."

Tsunade drummed her fingers against her desk as she waited for Sakura to drag herself out of the door and shut it behind her. She waited a few moments more just to be sure that the girl was out of earshot, then she turned a compressed smile on the man before her.

"What was that?" she asked with false sweetness.

"I don't know what you mean, Hokage-sama." He played dumb beautifully.

"I've never seen Sakura hide in a corner before, and she never seeks permission to speak from anyone but me. Now you're either oppressing her, or you're protecting her. Which is it?" she demanded. "Or is it both?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I really don't know what you-"

"Cut the act. Her body language was shouting that something happened on that mission, so don't try and string me around like an ignorant fool who can't see when her own apprentice is out of sorts and tell me the truth." She steadily rose to her feet to look him in the eye. With her heels on, she was almost as tall as he was. "If you lie to me again, I'll send you to Ibiki for a little 'information extraction'."

Involving some power cables and a bathtub, no doubt.

"I'd rather you didn't ask," said Kakashi quietly.

"Too bad I _am _asking then, isn't it?"

He sighed and shifted his stance to fold his arms. At least that dreadful fake smile was gone. "There was an incident," he admitted, speaking more to his chest than to her. "I'm sure you're aware that Uchiha Sasuke was last seen in the area of the north-western territory."

Tsunade frowned. "And?"

"And… apparently he was still there," he said trailing off so she could reach her own conclusion.

"Oh," she said, her eyes going a little wider. "You mean, you ran into him?"

"Not me, but certainly Sakura," he told her awkwardly.

"For goodness sake, is she alright?" Tsunade hissed. "What happened?"

He stared at the plant gracing her desk for a long moment before finally nodding. "She's fine, and what you might expect to happen, happened."

"He attacked her?"

Kakashi nodded again. "Without hesitation, but clearly he held his punches. Perhaps he still remembered her as a friend, but… either way, she's taking it hard as you can imagine."

"Of course. Was she injured?"

"A little, but naturally she healed herself."

"And where were you during all this?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow at him, expecting the worst.

"I… had gotten drunk the previous night and was occupied in a crusade to find aspirin. When I found Sakura, she was unconscious. The reason we were late was because we stopped in a hotel for the night. Emotionally and physically, she wasn't fit to travel."

"You were drunk."

"The previous night, yes. So was she."

"I'm sorry I asked."

"To be fair, Hokage-sama, the mission was a dud. We let our guard down when we shouldn't have, and sadly Sakura paid for it."

"Do you think she'll be ok?" Tsunade asked.

"She's still shaken up, but she'll be fine after a while. It wouldn't be the first time she's had a nasty brush with Sasuke-kun, after all," Kakashi said with a shrug. "And perhaps you shouldn't mention that I told you this. She doesn't want more ANBU sent after him."

"I don't really want to send anyone either," she admitted. "Sometimes I think that boy's better off lost, if you ask me. Just mentioning his name is depressing around here."

Kakashi nodded.

"Is that all you have to tell me?"

"That's everything, Hokage-sama."

"Hmm," she pursed her lips and surveyed him. "You can go in that case."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

He gave a short bow and headed for the door. On his way out he gave Shizune a vague wave as he passed her, but it was several seconds after he'd shut the door and all was quiet that Tsunade addressed her aide. "Well, what do you think of that then?"

Shizune's frown creased her brow. "He's hiding something. They both are."

"That much is obvious," Tsunade said as she sank back into her chair with a weary huff. "I'm just curious as to _what_ it is they're hiding."

"When it concerns Uchiha Sasuke," Shizune said with a helpless shrug, "I don't think anything is as simple as you might hope. Are you going to send a recovery team after him?"

The hokage propped her chin moodily on her fist. "No," she said after very little deliberation. "I don't have anyone to waste sending on another wild goose chase. If he's in the north west territory, he's keeping his distance, so we'll keep ours. The best thing to do is just forget about him."

But seven years after he was gone, and he was still haunting Team Seven. Some ghosts just didn't know how to die.

* * *

If she closed her eyes, she could still imagine he was nearby. Her skin remembered the places he'd touched and stroked, and even if it had happened so quickly and confusingly, every moment of it was committed to memory.

From the moment she'd given herself up, she hadn't felt quite the same. After experiencing such human intimacy, how did you adjust back to life so utterly without it? She felt detached from reality even now, as if the world had finally shown itself as the shameful illusion it truly was.

She'd never felt apathy like this. As she sat on Ino's bed, listening to the girl babble away about everything that had happened to her in Sakura's absence, the words just flowed over her without an impression. This disinterest went bone deep. She didn't care what Ino had to say. She didn't care where she was. She didn't care if she were to suddenly throw herself down on the floor and scream her head off, and she didn't care what anyone would think of her if she did.

"…Kenzaki gave me this. Isn't it beautiful?" Ino exclaimed, showing off a simple blue pendant tucked snugly in her cleavage. "He said when he saw it in the shop, he was reminded of my eyes, so he _had_ to get it for me."

Sakura suspected he'd given it to her more as an excuse to stare in the direction of her chest, but she didn't care to point that out. Ino's love life was so _irritatingly _easy. Sometimes Sakura wished she had Ino's ability to possess other people… because then she'd possess Ino herself, regardless of the fact that she'd decided a long time ago that she was done wishing Ino's life was her own.

"I hope he didn't spend too much on it, but his dad's rich, so I suppose it doesn't matter…" Ino trailed off as something outside the window caught her eye. "Hey… Sakura? Isn't that your teacher?"

A jab of discomfort cut through her unresponsiveness. Sakura followed her gaze to the house across the street – one which happened to be her own – to fix on the man stood on the doorstep. He was ringing the doorbell with one hand stuffed in his pocket.

Of all the people in the world, Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to see this one, even if it was just the back of his head at this great a distance. If there was one thing guaranteed to stir her feelings up right now, it was Hatake Kakashi, and frankly she preferred the moody depression than the confusing self-consciousness his presence alone inflicted.

"Aren't you going to call out to him?" Ino asked her curiously. "He's killing that doorbell."

He was and all. He'd stopped pushing the button intermittently and was now just holding it down. Even across the street Sakura could hear the faint, continuous buzz going off in her own home. If she'd actually been inside the house, she may just have opened the door to smack him around the head for being so obnoxious.

"I don't feel like talking to him right now," Sakura sighed, leaning her elbow on the windowsill.

"Maybe you should though. What if it's a mission?" the blonde girl pointed out.

"It's not, he's just being a pain," she muttered back, hoping he'd give up and go away in a minute.

"You know, sometimes you're just plain rude, Forehead," Ino admonished her, and then she leaned out the window and began waving her arm. "Yoo~hoo! Kaka~shi-sen~sei! Over heeeeeere!"

Oh god, he was turning this way…!

Without thinking, Sakura leapt on the other girl and tackled her flat on the bed so they both fell out of sight of the window. Ino squeaked and struggled, but Sakura held her fast. "Would you shut up?" she snapped. "I told you, I don't want to talk to him."

"I think he saw us anyway," Ino said with a smirk. "Hey wait… oh, ew! What if he thinks we were doing something weird? What if he thinks we're lesbians?! What will my poor Kenzaki think?"

"He probably wouldn't mind, Pig," Sakura sighed, still not daring to sit up in case Kakashi was still there.

"You're right," Ino whispered thoughtfully. "Guys get hot over that kind of thing, don't they? Hey, Sakura – kiss me."

"No!"

"Come on, just a little kiss – I won't bite!"

"Don't be weird, Ino."

"You're the one who's all over me, Forehead."

"Only because sometimes you need physically restraining," Sakura told her. She rolled onto her side to allow Ino room to breathe, but neither of them sat up.

"I don't get why you're trying to avoid Kakashi-sensei," Ino whispered, as if the man might hear them all the way across the road. "Did something happen on your mission?"

"No," Sakura said in a tone she knew was pretty unconvincing. Half of her was dying for Ino to ask her in order to get it off her chest, but the other, stronger half of her mind warned that some things you couldn't share. Least of all with Loudmouth Ino who'd never been known for her sensitivity before, so why expect any now? She'd had her fill of insensitivity this week. And so rather than pour her heart out, Sakura just buried her head in the other girl's shoulder.

"Something did happen, didn't it?" Ino said suspiciously. "You seem different."

"I think I _am _different."

Ino's neck smelled nice; like honeysuckle on warm, summer evenings. Was it her shampoo or her perfume, or just her moisturising cream? Sakura didn't think she smelled quite as pleasant after a week-long mission, but right now she didn't feel like moving. She needed this closeness, just for a moment. Even though Ino's body felt too slight and soft, and her skin smelled too sweet to fool Sakura's senses, it was all she could get. She knew she was confused. She knew that when she wrapped her arm around Ino's neck, it was really someone else she was trying to embrace.

"Did you two fight or something?" Ino asked, dragging her fingers playfully through Sakura's hair.

"Yeah," she sighed miserably.

"What about?"

"I… I did something stupid, Ino."

"And here I thought something unusual had happened."

Sakura poked her firmly in the ribs, but Ino just laughed and grabbed the offending hand so that their fingers linked together. "Cheer up, Sakura," she said. "It's not like you haven't fought with Kakashi-sensei before."

"Yeah," Sakura said weakly, "but this time I think…"

"What?"

"I don't think he likes me anymore."

"Don't be dumb. If he didn't like you he wouldn't be at your door, so you're just talking out the wrong orifice again," Ino said dismissively. "Now give me a cuddle."

"What about Kenzaki?"

"Yeah, we should take some pictures for him!"

In some ways, Ino was perhaps the closest thing she would ever get to a sister, complete with seething rows and hair pulling. A whole life spent living on each other's doorstep manufactured the kind of closeness that, despite sometimes going years without being on speaking terms, irrevocably tied them together. It probably had something to do with the friendship between their respective mothers too. It was hard to escape a classmate you hated when your mother kept dragging you round to her house for a cup of tea. Even if both women were now gone, for different reasons, they'd done a number on their daughters. Sakura couldn't escape Ino now, even if she wanted to.

"What happened, Sakura?" the blonde girl asked, her head touching Sakura's. "You know you can tell me."

Sakura wasn't falling for that. "I went against the rules a bit, that's all. He wasn't happy," was all she decided to say, and she supposed it was fundamentally true.

"Ya big dork," Ino grunted at her. "If he got mad, it's only because he's looking out for your best interests."

"I know, but…"

"But what?"

"Shouldn't deciding what's in my best interests be up to me?"

"Not if your best interests are really in your best interests!" Ino disentangled herself from Sakura to roll back onto her knees and peer out the window. "Hmm… he's gone now anyway. You can stop hiding."

Sakura sat up with a furious blush. "I wasn't hiding, I was just…" But there was no way of finishing that sentence without using some other glaring synonym for 'hiding'. Not when she was peeking so carefully through Ino's curtains to make sure her porch was as empty as Ino had said.

To her relief, there was no Kakashi in sight.

"Whatever you did, it can't be too bad." Ino's hand touched the top of her head, and for a moment Sakura was so strongly reminded of someone else who used to touch her there affectionately. A hard lump rose in her throat, suddenly making it difficult to breathe. "I know how neurotic you are about people needing to like you, but Kakashi-sensei…"

Sakura waited, but Ino seemed to have completely forgotten her train of thought and was staring at Sakura's shoulder with a confused frown. The next thing she knew, the girl had grabbed her by the collar. "What the hell is that?"

"What?"

"This thing on your neck," Ino poked the tender skin above Sakura's right collar bone. "It looks like a bruise but-"

"Ah!" Sakura yelped in surprise, slapping a hand over her neck. "Th-That's nothing. I had a bit of a scuffle with a suspect on the mission – that's all."

Ino stared at her.

"Can I, uh, use your bathroom?" Sakura asked, her voice almost on the verge of cracking.

Ino gave her a nonplussed stare, probably sensing a crab trying to scuttle away when she saw it. "Sure," she shrugged.

Wasting no time, Sakura hurried out of Ino's bedroom and all but slammed her way into the bathroom opposite. In the mirror above the sink she saw another pink-haired girl shut the door behind her and hurry forward, and it struck Sakura that this was the first time she'd seen her own reflection since she'd left on her mission with Kakashi. This was the first time she'd seen herself since…

And as she tugged down the collar of her vest, she realised what had escaped her notice.

Sakura had thought she'd gotten rid of all the telltale bruises and scratches. There hadn't been many, but just enough to testify to a fumbled coupling of inexperience and clumsiness. But as she looked at the angry red mark through the mirror, she knew this wasn't just another accidental knock in a heated moment. This was quite deliberate.

This was a hickie.

She knew one when she saw one, as she'd given herself plenty back when she was first eager to practice her healing skills. But who else today had seen this? Ino? Tsunade? People in the street?

Kakashi?

Embarrassed, she lifted her hand to start charging her chakra in order to get rid of the dark, ugly mark. But then she noticed the rest of her reflection and paused.

There was nothing very unusual about her appearance right now. She looked a little tired, but that was normal, and her complexion was as clear and healthy as ever. Her hair still hung the same, her clothes (though in need of washing and ironing) were the exact ones she'd left in. The girl looking back was the same girl Sakura always saw, and this was disarming… because the last time she'd looked in a mirror, she'd just been Sakura the girl. The virgin. The one whose only sexual experience was limited to frustrating forays into masturbation and a kiss with a fellow medic at a Christmas party. The one looking back at her now was Sakura the woman. The one who was just that bit more wise to the world than the girl of a week ago.

And the only visible difference between the two was this patch of reddened skin.

Somehow Sakura couldn't bring herself to remove it. This was all she had left of that night, whatever the intent behind it meant, and if she fastened the zip of her vest all the way up to the top the mark was as good as hidden.

* * *

Compared to the others, it was only a small grave and remarkably new, even though it had been standing for thirty years. But where many of the older tombs nearby held dozens of names of multiple generations, this one held just two.

Sakumo. Hanako. The Hatake family grave.

Kakashi sighed as he crouched down before it to tear up a clump of aspiring weeds growing near the base of the stone tablet. And then, having always lacked the foresight to bring flowers, lay down the same weeds in the allotted basin for bouquets. Yellow dandelions were just as pretty and pointless as any other petaled plant, he figured. It was the thought that counted… however little the thought might be.

It was difficult to remember the very people he tried to honour. This grave alone was the whole extent to which he knew his mother. Only her engraved name rang familar, as he certainly didn't remember her face. His father had left slightly more of an impression on him, but most of that had been posthumously. Almost all of what Kakashi actually remembered of his own sire was virtually schizophrenic in nature; the ups had been glorious, and the downs had been devastating, and whether this was just the confused impression left on a small child or evidence of his father's true mania, he had yet to figure out.

But now they were both just names on a stone and ashes under the ground. One day, the same would be true for him.

"You're back then."

Kakashi straightened and turned. "Hey, Kurenai."

The dark-haired woman smiled back at him warmly, but the small, shy girl at her side ducked behind her legs the moment Kakashi looked over. "Visiting Asuma?" he guessed.

Kurenai nodded and glanced over her shoulder at the very tomb she'd just visited. Even at this distance it was hard to miss. Being the son of a Hokage entitled a rather… large and elaborate family grave that towered over the rest. Kakashi glanced at his family's three foot high tablet, dwarfed by even the ordinary sized tombs, and another sigh escaped his lips.

"You were due back yesterday weren't you?" she asked him.

"You seem to know a lot for a civilian," he murmured. "Is there something I don't know?"

"I'm not coming back yet, if that's what you mean," she said airily. "But I have my contacts keeping me updated. Mei-chan, don't tug at Mommy's skirt like that."

Kakashi cocked his head to regard the child peeping out from behind her mother. "And how's Meiyu?" he asked pleasantly.

Meiyu presently disappeared again, as Kurenai laughed. "Top of her class, of course! Iruka-sensei says she'll be an excellent kunoichi one day, and that she's one of the most friendly and polite pupils he's ever taught. Isn't that right, Mei-chan?"

"Still a bit shy though, I see," he noted.

"Ah… not really. The only person she ever hides from is you."

"… I wish I could say that was the first time someone has said that to me."

"You have to admit, you have a very untrustworthy face."

"What does she care? She can't see my face."

"Exactly." Kurenai, fed up of the little cling-on dragging on her dress, reached down and lifted her daughter onto her hip. Brought out into the open whether she liked it or not, Kakashi could now see her properly. She was pretty, but not delicately so like Kurenai, as the similarity between mother and daughter ended with their curly hair.

"She looks more and more like Asuma every time I see her," he said.

"You think?"

"If you stick a beard on her, she'd be a dead ringer."

Meiyu seemed quite upset at this, but Kurenai just laughed and kissed her daughter's nose. "Perhaps we won't do that," she promised, before turning a more measured look on Kakashi. "Did you only _just _get back? Have you even been home yet?

"Nope," he hummed, stuffing his hands in his pockets with a shrug.

She looked uncertainly at the Hatake family grave. "And this is the first place you came?"

"Seems that way." Although technically he supposed it was the third place.

"That's odd," she murmured.

"Hm?"

"I mean, I don't think I've ever seen you visit here before. Normally you're at the cenotaph, so I guess I'm surprised you'd come straight after a mission to this place," she mused, looking at the grave's tablet. "Are these your parents?"

"Most likely." No room for absolutes in this crazy universe.

"Um… where's everyone else-"

"There is no one else," he said shortly.

She winced. "Oh, I see. I'm sorry," she said, as her daughter promptly hid her face against Kurenai's shoulder.

Perhaps he'd spoken more sharply than he'd intended, but it was a sore spot he didn't like people prying into. Where other people had family tombs full of ancestors stretching back hundreds of years, Kakashi's tomb started with just these two people, and in all probability would end with just him. It seemed to spell a sad, lonely afterlife.

He didn't even know why he'd come here, other than that perhaps this mission had left him a little shaken and unsure of what exactly constituted 'family' anymore.

"You're free to stop by for tea any time you like, you know," Kurenai told him. "Maybe you could tempt a game of shogi out of Meiyu? She's very good."

"Shikamaru must be a good teacher."

"He's done his best by us, even if he does love to complain about being outnumbered by women. Even Meiyu bullies him."

"Do not!" the small girl piped.

"Of course, you don't, Mei-chan," Kurenai soothed, but over her head she gave Kakashi a wink. "She has him wrapped around her little finger though. But I expect he'll be spending more time in Suna these days."

"How come?"

"He's getting married, isn't he?" she said. "To the sister of the Kazekage."

"Wait, how old is he?" Kakashi asked.

"Twenty."

"Kinda young to be getting married, don't you think?"

"Maybe. But not for them," she mused. "War's coming and you know what that's like. It's not unusual for people to rush into things or do stuff they wouldn't normally do when suddenly you're not sure you'll live to see next year."

Her words gave him pause. "I suppose that's true," he murmured. "But it does make me feel rather old."

"You _are_ old."

He squinted at her. "You're _older _than I am."

"How rude, to bring up lady's age," she remarked coolly, but with an amused smile. "Anyway, Meiyu's tired so I better take her home. Remember my invitation, Kakashi."

"Sure." He held up a hand in goodbye and watched the woman carry her child away down the path. She'd given up her career as a kunoichi for that kid, and Kakashi couldn't see her regretting it. Being a single-parent and risking your life on a daily basis was just not a conscionable choice to some people. He could see the logic. Kakashi supposed he might have turned out to be less of a fuckwit if he hadn't been orphaned quite so early on.

Then again, there was something to be said for being a fuckwit. "Right, Dad?" he asked the stone tablet.

The only reply was a harsh cackling that began behind him. He turned his head sharply and was confronted with the sight of a large, jet raven perched atop the wooden sotoba of another grave. It cocked its head to look back at him through one pale, blue eye before opening its beak to scold him again. He frowned. The mocking cackle of _kakaka_ went right through him.

He'd never been fond of birds.

Reaching down, he collected some gravel from the path and drew back his hand to take aim at the raven. At that moment it seemed to sense the danger and quickly took flight with enormous, snapping flaps of its ragged wings.

He'd never been fond of birds. _Especially_ of crows.

Without a backwards glance at the raven or the grave, he turned and slipped away out of the cemetery. For the second time that day he was walking back in the direction of his subordinate's home. He'd missed her earlier, but some sixth or seventh sense told him that she would be there now And sure enough, when he arrived outside the Haruno residence he noticed the garden gate he'd carefully left open barely an hour ago was now shut. When he went up to the door and poked the flap of the letterbox he noticed too that the pile of letters and pamphlets that had littered the entrance previously had all vanished, as if someone had passed through and collected them.

But ultimately there was no hiding the pair of boots that had suddenly materialised on the shoe rack.

Kakashi's thumb hit the doorbell and the same buzz he'd been treated to before began to ring out. Somewhere in the house, a hairdryer switched off. She knew he was there, but he continued ringing the bell to leave her no opportunity to ignore him.

He only stopped when he heard her irritable voice. "Who's there?"

As if she couldn't guess. "It's me," he called flatly.

He could _hear_ her hesitating. "Can you come back later?" she asked strenuously. "I'm not decent."

"I can wait," he replied. And he would if he had to.

"What do you want?" her impatient voice demanded.

"Could you just open the door, please?"

"Tell me what you want first."

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as the headache that had chased him for two days threatened to return to a full blown throb. "I want to talk," he said quietly.

That's when the door before him finally jerked open and Sakura's pale, set face appeared in the gap. "We've travelled together all day and _now _you want to talk?" she hissed. On one side of her head her hair was sleek and dry, while the other remained wet and curly. She also appeared to be dressed in the biggest, fluffiest dressing gown he'd ever seen, and he vaguely wondered how on earth she could think this was 'indecent' clothing when it left more to the imagination than her normal day clothes did. But she didn't have to clutch the neckline like that, as if suddenly she'd grown a sense of modesty about showing her own neck to him.

"I didn't tell Tsunade," he said carefully. "I thought you should know, since you looked worried."

Her gaze flicked down at the ground. "It was you who was so adamant about it; I didn't care either way. Thanks for stopping by, Sensei." She began pushing the door shut.

Kakashi's foot pointedly blocked it and he addressed her while she glared at the offending appendage like she was seriously debating whether or not to tear it off. "I'm sorry, Sakura," he said quietly.

Her eyes still avoided his. "It doesn't matter now."

"Well, if you love him I imagine it might matter quite a bit to you."

"That's none of your business," she told him sharply, releasing her dressing gown to clutch the doorframe.

"No, I guess not," he sighed. He tried to ignore it, he really did, but the second she'd released her dressing gown, the collar slid down several inches. And he might have been able to continue ignoring that if the dark splash of red on her skin hadn't caught his eye. Then there was no avoiding it. "Ah…," he began uncertainly, half pointing at her neck. "You seem to have a – you might want to heal that."

Her eyes flashed angrily, and without a moment's confusion or hesitation she tugged her collar back up. She couldn't have made it any more obvious that she already knew about the lovebites and would have thanked him not to notice. But then if she knew about the marks, why wouldn't she have already healed them?

"Goodbye, Sensei," she said abruptly, pushing the door shut so hard and fast that his foot didn't stand a chance; it was either move or be squished, and all of a sudden Kakashi found himself faced with the unyielding panel of an unsympathetic door. Sakura's footsteps retreated and a few moments after that he heard the hum of her hairdryer restarting.

No one could accuse him of not trying, and there was only so much you could pester a girl who could crush your ribcage with her little fist before she went ahead and violently did just that. His only choice was to leave her be and hope that tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, she learned to cope with her regrets.

Everyone had them, after all.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The First Doubt_


	6. The First Doubt

**House of Crows**

Chapter Five: The First Doubt

* * *

_I picture you in the sun,_

_Wondering what went wrong._

* * *

Once upon a time, the Hokage's office used to be a very quiet room, usually only occupied by Tsunade in a drunken stupor, a couple of clerics working silently in an adjoining room, and sometimes Sakura herself completing forms and signing papers that really the hokage should have been doing herself. Disorganisation was worryingly rampant, and on certain days Sakura honestly wondered if _she_ was the one actually running Konoha for all the work she did around that office while Tsunade took prolonged catnaps in her chair. Life was not very hectic at the top – or at least that had been true before the tensions had restarted with the Iwa.

Tonight the office was bursting with activity. Over fifty of the most elite shinobi in the village were now gathered together in that relatively small room, talking and laughing while Sakura squeezed between them, handing out colour coded mission scrolls. All these bodies made the office stiflingly hot, and the odd stream of cigarette smoke blew over her from time to time, making her cough and swallow hard against rising queasiness. And everyone looked so very much alike in their uniforms that figuring out which scrolls to give which shinobi was difficult. Black scrolls to the ANBU, red scrolls to the jonin and specialised jonin, blue for the chunin and white for the medics. She passed a red one to Shiranui Genma who opened it and sighed; and then she passed a white one to Yamanaka Ino who read hers with a look of unadulterated despair.

Sakura thought she was doing quite well until she got to the cluster of 'elites' in the corner, when, as was usually the case when she got within five feet of her superior, her nerves got shot to hell. She did her best to hide it and reached out to casually hand a red scroll to Kakashi, but as he moved to accept it, Sakura released too quickly for fear of his fingers accidentally brushing against hers.

The scroll clattered to the ground.

"I'm so sorry!" She dived to collect it.

"No, it's fine…" Kakashi did the same.

Fingers crossed and scorched. Sakura whipped back upright and moved on to the next jonin, leaving Kakashi to collect his own scroll from the floor. The sooner he was gone from this office the better. She wouldn't be able to relax until then.

"Ladies, gentleman… little quiet please," Tsunade said, her voice breaking over the chatter as Sakura handed the last scroll to the man she'd formerly known as Captain Yamato. "Now this operation is a big one and you all have your own individual missions to complete. Some of you will be working in teams, the others alone, but see this as several parts of the same objective. If you mess up your part, you mess it up for everyone. So listen very carefully and hold your questions till the end. I don't have to remind you that the success of this mission is vital to the survival of this village."

Quiet descended as everyone listened to their Hokage outlining the history and objectives of the plan. Sakura stood at the side of the room, sucking anxiously on the ends of her hair and staring resolutely at the corner of Tsunade's desk. The fine hairs along the back of her neck prickled with awareness, and in her paranoia she felt like Kakashi was looking at her out of the corner of his eye the way she was looking at him, even though she knew in reality his indifference to her was not an act. He was undoubtedly focused entirely on every word from their Hokage… something that Sakura herself was struggling to do.

"…we have confirmed the syndicate is operated at its top by mercenaries. The earth country has paid a lot to enlist their aid against us, and their influence throughout the five nations is absolute. However, the people pulling the strings of this syndicate are unknown to us, and in order to take down an enemy, you first need to know them. This is why the missions you have been given are split equally between deep reconnaissance and disassembling the known lower sects of the organisation. Hopefully this will prove the fastest way to understand who we're up against. Take no risks, cover your trails, and remember at all times what is at stake here if this syndicate prevails. Taking it down is key to defeating Iwa."

It was another excruciating hour before Tsunade finally dismissed everyone. Sakura couldn't stop her eyes from drifting over to Kakashi as he turned to leave, and for a brief moment their eyes met. All the shame and guilt washed over her again, leaving a large lump in her throat that threatened to choke her. Then he was gone, out the door with the rest of the fifty-man contingent.

With only the Hokage to see her, Sakura sagged against the wall, feeling drained.

"You look as miserable as I feel," Tsunade commented to her dryly. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing really," Sakura said half-heartedly, troubled by far too many things to elaborate them effectively. "Just a bad day, that's all."

"Bad days are nothing. Everyone's days are bad now. What you're having is a tragic day." Tsunade's painted lips curved in a slight smile as she leaned over her mission briefing notes. "Trouble at home?"

Sakura stood awkwardly, unsure if she had the energy to formulate some believable white lies or if she should just make some excuse to leave. Her misery must have been more obvious than she realised if even the overworked Hokage had noticed, but at least Tsunade had ascribed it to something else. After all, it was no secret by now that Sakura had bailiffs knocking on her door every week, and that was enough to make anyone stressed and miserable. And while that _was _one of Sakura's most pressing concerns, it was not the main source of her stress.

"Your mother left you with a lot of debt, Sakura," Tsunade went on. "There's no shame in feeling a little overwhelmed. It's not fair to have to pay for someone else's excesses, especially when you're young and living on a shoestring already, am I right?"

"I don't mind," Sakura said, moving to sit down in a chair beside the Hokage's desk. "It's not like she gambled it away or anything. She just spent more than what was coming in, mostly on me and my education, so I can hardly resent her memory."

"Of course not. But you can still have a commiserative drink." And as she said this, Tsunade miraculously produced three enormous bottles of sake from their hiding place beneath her desk and laid out two cups between them. "At least sake can cheer anyone up in a crisis."

Sakura regarded the cups with dismay. Some weeks ago she had enjoyed a cup of sake with another superior, and just smelling the aroma of the alcohol was enough to remind her of that unpleasant mission. Neither was commiserating with sake a habit that Sakura wanted to pick up anyway after seeing her Hokage float through some of the hardest patches of her job in a boozy haze. It must have been nice, but Sakura feared that if she took to drink to forget her misery, she would be drunk all day every day. Nevertheless, a little drink now would do no harm, although it was more out of politeness than anything else. "Thank you, shishou."

As Tsunade poured the sake into the two cups she sighed. "To be honest, you're not the only one with troubles. This syndicate has me worried."

"Shishou?"

"It's everywhere, Sakura. It was overlooked for so long because until recently it was just a petty crime syndicate; a bit of money laundering here, some dirty intimidation and corporation blackmail there, but that was all. They're undoubtedly here in Konoha, and some recent intelligence indicates that there are spies among us."

Sakura's eyes widened, and she shot a furtive look around the office as if she might see one of them hiding behind the curtains or pretending to mop the floor. They were, of course, alone. Save for the group of chunin working diligently in the adjoining office, and they were probably safe as they'd been there since the creation of the universe.

"How far up?" she asked.

Tsunade gave a malcontent grimace. "Our sources beggar belief in how deeply they claim our ranks have been infiltrated… but half the time these things are rumour or propaganda to make leaders start jumping at their own shadows," Tsunade said wearily, taking a deep mouthful of her drink. "I've even heard that _I'm _part of this mafia."

Sakura looked down at her own cup and tentatively brought it to her lips, but the moment the bitterness touched her tongue, she had to fight the urge to spit it back out. "Ugh – shishou, I think your stash went bad."

"What are you talking about? It's fine." Tsunade threw her an incredulous look, to let Sakura know she was a cretin. "You have no appreciation for fine wine."

Apparently not; her voluntary aversion seemed to have spread to her taste buds. Sakura set her cup down with a cough. "You're right. It's probably just propaganda," Sakura said. "So there's no need for witch-hunts yet."

Tsunade gave her a suspicious look. "Only a spy would try to deflect a witch-hunt."

A laugh broke free from Sakura's lips before she realised it, and all too suddenly she was acutely aware of how long it had been since she'd laughed, even at a passing joke like this. It must have been so long she'd forgotten how to laugh properly, because Tsunade's eyes narrowed at her as if Sakura had just clucked like a chicken.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Tsunade asked. "You look a little peaked."

"I've not been feeling so well lately," Sakura admitted softly.

"So Kakashi tells me. He says you've been taking a lot of sick leave off team assignments. Really, Sakura, the last thing I need are people going sick during a crucial point in our campaign. But if you're sick, don't overdo it, because the next to last thing I need are people making themselves even more sick out of sheer stubbornness, and you really don't look well." Tsunade's gaze swept her figure with disturbing criticism. "You haven't been quite right since that mission to Jonan if I recall."

Was it that obvious? Sakura rubbed a thumb over an clammy palm and shrugged as if she knew nothing of this. "Haven't I?" she said vaguely.

"I know that was a rather unpleasant mission," Tsunade said quietly. "Kakashi told me what happened."

Sakura jumped. "He did?" she breathed, wide-eyed with horror.

"Strictly off the record, of course," her shishou said, nodding. "No one else has to know you had a run in with Uchiha Sasuke. God knows I can't spare any ANBU to send after him right now, and then there's the paperwork. You can see I have enough of that to contend with! So as far as anyone knows, you _didn't_ see him, ok?"

For a moment Sakura sat stiffly, staring at the fingers clenched tightly in her lap. "Yes," she said at last, finding it a small relief that Kakashi had said nothing else. If he had, Tsunade would already have torn into her…

"I'd be surprised if that was what was still bothering you," Tsunade went on. "It _was _six weeks ago. But you still look awfully pale."

Sakura shook her head tiredly. "I'm alright, really," she stressed. "It may just be PMS anyway."

"Why would it be PMS?" Tsunade asked flatly. "Aren't you on the injection? Haven't you stopped menstruating yet?"

Sakura shot a nervous glance towards the clerics in the adjoining room. Spies or not, she would prefer not to be overheard. She was never easy discussing female matters, even with other females. This was probably all thanks to having a mother who conducted life as if these things didn't exist, and now the blunt frankness of her shishou sometimes left Sakura flustered. "Um… I came off it some months ago," she whispered. "It was giving me migraines."

"Well, that's a bit inconvenient for a kunoichi, don't you think?" Tsunade asked. "What are you taking instead?"

"Nothing?"

"_Nothing_?" Tsunade repeated, only louder. "Well, what the hell are you _thinking_?! Do you know why Konoha loses more female shinobi than male each year? It's because they get pregnant and drop out, and half of them wind up single mothers one way or another, so you can pretty much kiss them goodbye!"

"Well, I…" Sakura struggled to formulate a reply. Was she being accused of irresponsibility here? "But, shishou, I-"

"You _have_ to be _careful_, Sakura!" Tsunade said. "And you can never be too-"

Sakura couldn't take it anymore. She had to interrupt. "Shishou, you don't have to worry! They said it would be like another year before everything was back to normal, and I'm, like, totally celibate anyway."

Tsunade held off her launch into a fierce safe sex lecture and frowned at her apprentice.

"Well. Not really by choice," Sakura finished bashfully.

"Oh. I see." Tsunade gave her a very sympathetic look, as if Sakura had just admitted to a terrible life-threatening condition. "So you don't…"

Sakura shook her head.

"Have you _ever…?_"

Sakura shook her head again, although this time with a little more red about her cheeks. It was a blatant lie of course, but she would sooner drop dead than admit out loud to _that _incident.

"Well, alright then. I'll let you off," Tsunade said, composing herself to pour another cup of strong sake. "If there's one thing that annoys me, it's seeing people display irresponsible behaviour. It's like no one bothers to take care of their own body anymore."

Sakura stared pointedly at her hypocritical shishou.

"What?" Tsunade asked innocently, taking a long sip.

"Nothing, shishou," Sakura said, just as innocently. "May I go now?"

"Of course. Good luck on your mission."

"Thank you, shishou."

In truth Sakura had been too distracted during the meeting to read her own mission scroll. Normally she might go home to study it, but right now she was swayed in the direction of the cafeteria by the grumbling of her own stomach. By and large the food in the cafeteria was considered the worst in all of Konoha, but there was something about their bean buns that Sakura wasn't able to resist. Right now she couldn't get enough of them, and they were perhaps the only thing on the menu that didn't turn Sakura's stomach. After all, just a whiff of the soup-of-the-day was enough to make her want to retch lately. She didn't know if this was due to a nose-dive in the cafeteria's standards, or the stress had left her frailer than usual.

Apparently a lot of the other shinobi who had attended the meeting in the Hokage's office had also had the same idea. When she arrived in the large cafeteria on the ground floor of the tower, it was already filled with the sounds of other people talking and eating. The food may have been bad, but at least it was free, so like everyone else, Sakura took a tray and filled it with as many spicy bean buns as was humanly possible to eat in one go, and went to find the seat.

As she tucked into her warm, tangy bread, she rolled open the mission scroll and began reading.

Great. Another team assignment. She sat back with a sigh and wondered what to do. She didn't mind Naruto and to a lesser extent she could just about tolerate Sai if he made an effort to behave himself. But Kakashi…

Just the thought of him left her with an uncomfortable feeling that settled between her shoulder-blades as if she was being watched. She hadn't been proud of herself for backing out of all those missions. Yet what could she do? Sakura went to pieces whenever he was near… she couldn't handle that.

There was no pretending everything was fine and normal when she couldn't even look him in the eye.

* * *

Kakashi's fingers tapped an indecipherable rhythm on his mission scroll as he rolled it lethargically across the table beside him. Almost everyone else in the cafeteria was busy reading their scrolls and chatting over the mission, and while Kakashi should have been doing the same, he found himself staring off into space more often than not. This was because when the crowds parted just right, he caught a glimpse of a pink-haired subordinate sitting at the other end of the hall reading up on her own mission.

This, he thought, was probably about as close as he could safely get to Sakura these days.

Back when they'd returned from that mission, he'd hoped things would remain the same. To her credit she'd tried for a little while, but where before she'd bumped shoulders amicably with him or tweaked his nose through his mask to get his attention, now she shied away from him. In an unguarded moment he'd once tried to ruffle her hair as he often liked to do when she said something cute, only for her to jerk away out of his reach. She'd tried to cover it with a smile as if it was a joke, but there was no hiding an instinctive reaction like that.

Over the days and weeks she'd withdrawn from him little by little until there was no mistaking that there was no recovering from this.

She barely spoke a word to him unless she had to. There would always be some excuse to leave if she found herself alone with him, and whenever a mission was assigned to their team, she seemed to develop a mysterious illness. But since she'd filled in as medic for Neji's team two weeks ago, he was forced to conclude that the only thing she was allergic to was missions involving… himself.

He'd planned to simply sit at his table and moodily watch Sakura from a safe distance as he'd been doing most days recently when she didn't realise he was nearby, but when Shizune sat down beside him suddenly with a tray, his intense solitude was interrupted. "Hatake Kakashi, you need to go to hospital," she said, throwing the onions out of her salad onto his empty plate.

"Am I dying?" he asked.

"No, but-"

"I'm not going if I'm not dying."

"You _might_ be dying, if that's any consolation. But you need a check-up at the hospital to ascertain that though," she explained, nibbling at her sandwich.

"Mm." Kakashi was out of retorts. His mind had wandered off as he watched the oblivious pink-haired girl on the other side of the hall munching on a bean bun while reading through her mission scroll at the same time.

Shizune followed his gaze. When she spotted Sakura, she sighed. "That girl…"

"Huh?" Kakashi turned to her sharply. "What about her?"

Shizune shot Sakura one last disapproving look before concentrating on her sandwich. "Don't get me started on her. I keep telling her, but does she listen? Oh no."

"What?" Kakashi pressed.

"For starters, she's working too hard. One of Tsunade's clerics quit two weeks ago, and Sakura's been picking up the slack because she thinks Tsunade will have to start paying her, and no matter how many times I tell her, she still believes Tsunade will notice and give her a bonus to pay off her debts. The vulture's are circling, Kakashi, she's going to lose her mother's house whether she likes it of not, but she won't admit it. _And _I'm worried she's gone back to dieting. Just look at her."

Kakashi looked. "She looks alright to me." Shizune probably hadn't just spent the last few minutes watching the girl demolish an entire stack of bean buns.

"Yes, well you're a man," Shizune said dismissively. "She's been turning her nose up at food and I'm worried she's getting thinner. Maybe you could talk to her for me? Get her back on missions and out of the office. She's just making herself ill over these money problems."

Kakashi honestly doubted he could say anything that would be of any comfort to this girl, but he was disturbed to think he hadn't appreciated Sakura might have had other problems going on that he'd known nothing about.

"She's been a bit strange since that mission to Jonan," Shizune noted speculatively. "Is it really true that she had a run-in with Sasuke-kun?"

"Yes, well that would be enough to shake most people's confidence," Kakashi said darkly, with a sharp edge to his tone that made Shizune look side-long at him.

"That bad?" she murmured.

"I was there, remember," he sighed, not taking his eyes off Sakura for a second.

"Must be hard, being attacked by someone you love…"

But that wasn't even close to the reality of the situation. "Do you want the truth?" Kakashi asked her.

Shizune frowned at him. "Truth?"

"He didn't attack her," he said impassively, continuing to roll the scroll beneath his fingers. "She attacked him."

"Meaning?"

After a moment he shrugged his shoulders and came to a resolution. "I'll have a go," he said quietly, and got to his feet to slip between the tables toward where Sakura sat. She hadn't noticed him, absorbed as she was in her mission scroll. But when his shadow fell across her plate, she looked up with bright expectation –

- which dimmed rather sharply when she recognised him.

"Hi!" she greeted perkily, and he might have been fooled if he hadn't witnessed the dullness enter her eyes. Her lips may have been quirked up in a sham of a smile, but her eyes were blank and hostile. He had her cornered and she didn't have any reasonable excuse to leave without being too obvious. She clearly resented this.

"Hey," he said smoothly, taking a seat next to her and noticing how her whole body shifted into a slightly more defensive posture. "How are things?"

"Fine." She now levelled her fake smile at her scroll, and her hand compulsively tucked her short hair behind one ear in a gesture that betrayed her anxiety. "I'm very busy though."

Now what? He could sense she was trying to get rid of him, and he glanced helplessly back at Shizune who was giving a discreet hand-signal under the cover of her sandwich – the Konoha signal for 'mission'.

Good point.

"The mission coming up," he said, nodding to her scroll, "it would be nice if you came along for once. Ino's lovely, but she has commitments to her own team, and it's been more than two weeks since you last did fieldwork. Don't you miss it?"

"I do," Sakura said carefully and with great patience. "But I'm busy. I'm not sure I can do field assignments right now."

"Shizune says you're picking up more office work," Kakashi said. "Is that really befitting of the Hokage's apprentice? Are you even getting paid for it?"

Sakura shot Shizune a venomous glare; one that said woman dodged by pretending to be searching her plate for a lost pickle. "It's not a problem."

Her whole body was angling away from him, and you didn't need six months of an intensive ANBU behavioural course to recognise what her body language was saying. _Go away. I don't like you. You have nothing to say that I want to hear._

Kakashi took a slow, deep breath. "Your priorities seem a little muddled right now. I'm not sure I understand why you're passing up well-paid fieldwork to toil for free in an office… unless there's something else that's putting you off missions." As Kakashi finished, he noticed how Sakura's lips had gone a shade paler, and that fake smile had slipped as she flicked at bread crumbs.

"I'm just busy," she said more quietly and with far less conviction than before.

Kakashi looked to the long window running across the wall behind her. Outside was the tower's gardens, and from the grimy black clouds hanging low overhead, it looked as though it was trying hard to rain. "If you hate me," he said slowly, "you have to tell me. We can make other team arrangements for you."

Her jaw locked in a clench, and her glassy eyes remained riveted on her scroll. "I don't hate you," she said with a stiff voice. "Don't be ridiculous. Why would I hate you? I'm just busy, that's all."

He didn't believe her in the slightest. "Ok," he said dully. "I just think you need to know that I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? I can't think of anything."

"Sakura… I know that Sasuke was important to you, but I had to do it-"

"I was the one who betrayed him," she whispered. "Not you."

He hesitated. "Is that what's still bothering you?" he asked, as he slowly reached out to touch the back of her fingers. "Or is it something else?"

Her hand snapped away before he even got close. She blinked once and suddenly a hot tear was streaking down her cheek. In an instant her pretence was destroyed and she abruptly jumped to her feet, her back angled towards him so he could no longer see her face. "Sorry, but I promised Naruto I'd see him five minutes ago. I better go."

She gathered her scroll up and quickly walked away. Kakashi had to admit Shizune was actually right. Sakura was definitely skinnier than usual, and he'd thought she was too skinny to begin with anyway.

Dismayed by the failed encounter, he slunk back to his former table and slumped pensively into his chair. Shizune could only stare at him in astonishment. "What did you say?" she demanded. "Only you could try to pep talk someone and have them burst into tears."

Kakashi sighed. "Yeah, well, I'm probably the last person she wants to hear from right now."

"I thought you two got along?"

"Not since Sasuke." He pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered just how long it might take him to perfect a time-space jutsu that could send him back to that day in Jonan where he could promptly kill himself before he ever even thought about taking Sakura on that mission. Screw time paradoxes; it was the most realistic solution he could think of right now.

"Oh, cheer up, she'll straighten out eventually. She's a smart girl." Shizune gave him a friendly nudge with her elbow, but Kakashi only grunted. "You have a team mission coming up, don't you? Maybe she'll decide to come along this time?"

Kakashi sighed and shrugged. She _may_ decide to come along on a mission, but he doubted it would be with him.

* * *

Sakura had no intention of finding Naruto, but she had no desire to head home either, as 'home' was a place that was nothing more than a cold, empty house where the quiet stretched without anyone else to interrupt it. The brush with Kakashi had shaken her slightly, and the evening was drawing in, so she decided to drift in the direction of Ino's place. Ino wasn't much of a comforting sort of friend, but she was at least guaranteed to take Sakura mind off her current troubles.

The quickest way was through the restaurant and café district, but these days Sakura tried to avoid that avenue as much as possible. She must have been more stressed about the bailiffs than she realised because it had begun to affect her health in small, unpleasant ways. Sometimes she only had to catch a whiff of some sizzling sweet meat on a grille for her stomach to turn in a threatening way until all she could stand to even think about was something plain and inoffensive like bread and water. On her way to work it had become so common for the smells emanating from the dining district to make her gag that she had learnt to take the long way around; a route that took her past the training grounds. They were more or less always upwind from the dining district, so Sakura could make her way to and from work without suffering spasms of nausea.

That was the route Sakura took today as she made her way to Ino's. As she passed the training grounds she paused and linked her fingers through the wire fence to watch the inordinate number of shinobi training beyond it. Out of habit she searched amongst them for a familiar face – or rather, a familiar mask – but he wasn't there, and it was hard to say if she found that fact a disappointment or a relief. His presence terrified her as much as the thought of him exhilarated her. It put her in the most uncomfortable position of longing to see him when they weren't together and desperate to get away from him when they _were_. She knew it was an absurd and silly way to think and feel, but she could no sooner change her contradictory ways than she could change the orbit of the moon.

"Moocher!" Ino greeted Sakura the moment she opened the door.

"I'll pay you back one day," Sakura promised emptily as she scooted past her friend before she could be turned away. "I just wanted to borrow your shower for a – oh, hey, is that udon?"

"You're not invited!" Ino said firmly, if not a little futilely as Sakura was already in the kitchen, sniffing around the bowl of steaming noodle soup.

"Oh, please, be kind," Sakura begged. "All I have in my fridge is chocolate pudding and its driving me mad, so it's either you or the trash cans outside."

Ino's mouth twisted unhappily. "If it weren't for the smell, I'd think you were joking," she said dryly as Sakura sniffed herself in panic. "Alright. _Fine. _But why don't you get some proper food for once?"

Sakura shrugged and watched eagerly as Ino fetched another bowl and carefully tipped a quarter of her broth into it. "No money. It just seems to disappear. Between all the bills, and trying to pay off all of Mom's old debts before the sharks come to break my legs… there's not much left."

"You should talk to the hokage about being paid for your apprenticeship," Ino said.

Amidst shovelling noodles into her mouth, Sakura explained. "No way. She sees it as a favour she's doing me, so she'd sooner dismiss me than pay me. And the hospital won't pay a part-time medic as much as a full-time one. And I guess I'm not doing as much fieldwork these days…"

Ino gave her a suspicious look. "Yeah, _I've_ been the one picking up your slack there. How come you're turning down missions now? I thought you liked them."

"I do…" It was just that some days she didn't want to even begin to contemplate dealing with Kakashi, and that was when she opted to stay in the office. As depressing as it was to be stuck by a desk while her teammates traversed the land looking for mischief (or stumbling into it by accident), it was a great deal easier on her nerves than enduring long hours out in the field with her superior. She'd thought she could cope after returning from Jonan, but his perfect indifference to her after all that had happened always made her uneasy and clumsy. "I just get bogged down with other work sometimes." She moved to take a sip of Ino's drink, but the moment the liquid touched her touched she spat it back. "Eurgh! What is that?"

Ino gave her a look that was a mixture of annoyance and surprise. "What? It's just a bit of wine and lemonade. You like wine and lemonade."

"I think your wine's gone sour," Sakura told her, wiping the bitterness from her lips with the back of a hand.

"Yeah, whatever. It tastes fine. But listen to me and stop trying to change the subject – holing up in that office is not healthy. I _order_ you to take the next mission that comes your way," Ino declared. "Weren't you assigned one by Tsunade today?"

"Yeah." The white medic scroll was safely packed in her bag. "Team assignment to track down a crime lord in the wind country."

"Oh, I envy you," Ino said, stroking her plait. "Mine's a long-haul solo to the rain country of all places. Some rich guy is suspected of funding the crime syndicate, so I guess _someone_ has to go infiltrate his household staff and keep an eye on him, and it's listed officially as 'idiot-proof'. Still, six-months is a long time away from home, isn't it? And even then I think that's a bit optimistic."

"Wow…" Sakura said, shocked. "Are you going to eat that radish?"

"You can have it if you swap missions with me."

"Hey, I'm not _that_ hungry."

"You wouldn't think what with the way you just inhaled that udon," Ino said pointedly. "I thought you were on another diet anyway."

Sakura blinked in confusion. "Why?" What had given her that impression.

"You've been skipping lunch at the hospital a lot lately too. I bet you've lost a couple of pounds at least." Ino gave her a scrutinising look that echoed a similar one Sakura had been given only a short while ago. "Are you ok?"

Sakura glared at her. "Oh, don't you start. You're as bad as Tsunade-shishou! I think you're both just trying to embarrass me."

"Oh? What did the big lady say to you now?"

"Same as you. So I forgot to put some make-up on this morning – that doesn't mean I'm on death's door just because I have eye-baggies or whatever. _Then _she started going on at me about birth control. Can you believe that? She only stopped when I told her I was a virgin, though I'm sure those clerics overheard and had a good laugh about it."

Ino looked at her confusion. "Sorry?"

"I said, I bet those clerics had a good laugh about it."

"No…" Ino frowned at her. "Sakura, who are you trying to kid? You're not a virgin."

"What are you talking about?" Sakura laughed uncertainly. "Of course I am."

"Sakura, who do you think you're talking to? I can tell a virginal bud from a plucked blossom any day of the week, and you my friend, are the latter. And only just recently, I'll bet."

Sakura stared at the other girl, agog. "How… how is that even remotely possible?"

"I don't know, it's just pure instinct. Maybe something about the way you walk, or stand, or sit with your legs tightly crossed as if you regret ever spreading them for some reason?"

"Oh god…" Sakura pressed her hot face into her hands, utterly appalled. If Ino could tell that much, she could probably tell _who_ had 'plucked' her just from sniffing her hair or something. "Is it that obvious?"

Ino's hands slammed onto the table with her eyes wide and her mouth curved into an outrageous grin. "Oh my god, Sakura! I was totally messing with you – I can't believe you fell for it! And I can't believe you really _have_ done it! Argh! I'm so proud of you!"

Sakura's hands clapped over her mouth with a gasp, which, in retrospect, was a tad incriminating. It took her several seconds before she regained her composure. "Yeah, I know. I was playing along."

"Ok, I may not be able to tell a virgin from a non-virgin, but I can at least tell that when your voice goes up, you're lying," Ino snorted. "Now tell me everything. _Everything."_

There was only so much you could keep from a friend like Ino. She had a nose for drama the way a shark had a nose for blood, and both could detect it within a three mile radius of wherever they happened to be. Sakura switched on a vague, bored look, hoping to fool her friend. Sometimes if you pretended there was no drama to be had, you could convince the shark to swim away.

Trouble was, Sakura wasn't that good an actor.

"What's to tell?" Sakura said with a shrug. "Nothing, that's what."

Ino's eyes bore unblinkingly into hers. It was terribly unnerving, and Sakura felt increasingly uncomfortable until one shifty sideways glance had Ino raising her chin in victory. "You _did_ sleep with someone, didn't you?"

Sakura said contritely, "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Who was it?"

"I don't really want to talk about it," she reiterated loudly.

"It must have been really bad then," Ino baited. "I bet he didn't even take his socks off."

He hadn't even taken his shoes off, but that was beside the point. Sakura sighed and drooped on the table. "I'm _really_ not in the mood to talk about it Ino. It was a long time ago, so let's just…" Sakura trailed off as something Ino had said before gnawed at her synapses. Something wasn't right here. It _had_ been a while ago; several weeks in fact. The mission with Kakashi had been in mid-July, and now it was almost September… so-

Her thought was interrupted when Ino snapped her fingers before her nose. "Way to zone out, Moocher," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Didn't you hear what I said?"

"No," Sakura said honestly.

"I said when are you going to pay me back for all these free meals you keep cadging?"

"Soon," Sakura said, less honestly. "Hey, can I borrow your shower?"

"What's wrong with yours?"

"Heater's broken."

Ino tutted but shrugged nonetheless. "Knock yourself out." Although that could have been genuine advice rather than a figure of speech.

Ino's bathroom was much like her own, in that it was more of a traditional wet room than anything else. Sakura slid off her clothes and dropped them in a pile outside the door before turning on the water heater with the practised ease of a girl who had been mooching this utility off her friend for some weeks now. But as she was reaching for the shower gel to begin lathering up, she caught sight of herself in the mirror on the far wall and paused with a critical frown.

An uneasiness that she'd been suppressing since Jonan once again clawed its way to the forefront of her thoughts, and unconsciously she passed a hand over her abdomen, trying to reassure herself that everything was exactly as it should be. Perhaps there was a little bit of swelling, but as a medic she knew that this was water retention and nothing more.

It could all be explained naturally by the fact that her period was due, of course. And it _had _to be due soon, because she'd only just realised that her last cycle had ended almost a week before the mission with Kakashi… and that had been almost seven weeks ago. She hadn't been keeping track after coming off the Injection since she'd been warned that her periods would restart slowly and irregularly, and that it could be another year before she returned to normal fertility, but she'd thought they'd finally been settling down to a more or less monthly cycle. To suddenly return to skipping periods perhaps wasn't that unusual, considering the circumstances…

But as Sakura began meticulously washing her arms, a new seedling of worry had sprouted in her mind, and it refused to go away.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Ultimatum_


	7. Ultimatum

**House of Crows**

Chapter Six: Ultimatum

* * *

_Excuse me, think I've mistaken you for somebody else_

_Somebody who gave a damn, Somebody more like myself__._

* * *

The scream reverberated through his consciousness like a knife, startling him awake with an unpleasant judder. For a moment his head spun and his heart thudded hard, then the river in his head began to fade away to be replaced by the brightly lit bedroom of morning. Sakura disappeared too, leaving him alone in his bed.

Relief flooded through him, to know that he was back in reality and his dream had just been that – a dream. But it wasn't the first of its kind, and they'd been plaguing him ever since that dreadful mission.

Guilt dogged him. He was late for a meeting already, but he couldn't summon the will to do anything but lie in bed and feel sorry for himself.

The shifting of blankets beside him alerted him to the fact that he wasn't quite as alone on this bed as he'd originally thought. However, it didn't concern him. Not when he heard the tinkle of a collar and the mattress began to wobble rhythmically as someone tried to catch their fleas unawares. "I didn't know you talked in your sleep."

Neither did Kakashi, but he had no desire to ask what kind of horrible truths he'd admitted to while unconscious. "Not on the bed, Pakkun," Kakashi grunted instead.

The furry little pug paused in his scratching to lick his foot before shaking himself exuberantly. "Why are you still in bed?" Pakkun asked, crawling forward on his belly to rest his chin on Kakashi's shoulder. "It's midday."

Kakashi glanced at him. Pakkun's big wandering eyes and wrinkly, slobbery face peered back. "Don't give me that cute look," he told the dog. "What do you want?"

"Me and the boys were just kind of wondering, you know… if we could trouble you for some biscuits. It's been such a long time since we had biscuits."

"What?" Kakashi grunted, rubbing his fingers over his eyes. "I gave you biscuits last Saturday."

"And they were great, thanks, but I didn't mean those biscuits. I mean the biscuits that Floral Green make us. You know, the ones like little short-breads that taste like cat?"

With a sigh, Kakashi let his arms flop to his sides. "Firstly, she didn't really use cat, she was just teasing you," he said tiredly. "It was rabbit flavouring. And secondly, she doesn't use Floral Green anymore, she uses Wild Orchid. And she has a name."

"I remember smells better." Pakkun wagged his tail slightly. "Could you get her to make more biscuits for us? We'll deal with any cat or mailman problems she might have."

It was a reasonable enough request. Pakkun asked only occasionally and normally Sakura was more than happy to pamper a bunch of spoiled hounds with some home-made biscuits. But things were a little different now. Sakura wanted nothing to do with him, and he couldn't guarantee this didn't extend to his pack of mutts. That and he knew she was keeping herself far too busy these days, and by all accounts had serious money problems. He wasn't going to bother her with requests for cat-flavoured biscuits.

After long deliberation, Kakashi said, "No."

"Why not?" Pakkun's little ears perked and his head cocked slightly in a typical canine gesture of confusion.

"Because," he said slowly, wondering if he even wanted to get into it, "she's not talking to me."

Pakkun gave a frustrated half-growl half-groan. "What did you do?"

"You wouldn't understand," he said flatly. "Lifting his hand with another sigh, Kakashi laid it over the pug's head and gave his ears a good scratch, hard enough to make his wrinkles wobble. "_I'll _make you some biscuits if you like," he said.

Pakkun echoed his sigh. "Please don't."

Such a dismayed tone made Kakashi chuckle. "Alright. How about a string of sausages from the butcher's instead?"

Pakkun's tail wiggled for a few seconds before he managed to control it. "If you insist."

"You'll be earning your keep soon though," Kakashi warned. "There's some important missions lined up."

"Finally! We were getting a bit bored." Pakkun got up and went snuffled through Kakashi's hair and around his ear before clearing his nose with a stout sneeze. "Jeez. Have you started smoking again?"

"No," Kakashi said, cunningly not looking at the ashtray on the bedside table that contained at least three ashy stubs. A week's worth of cigarettes.

"Floral green would probably like you better if you didn't stink."

"Wild Orchid," Kakashi corrected.

"Her name's Sakura," said Pakkun.

"I know…"

* * *

_So big deal, you skipped a period. _

It wouldn't have been a first. The last time she'd missed a cycle, she'd been imprisoned in a thunder country jail for over two months before anyone had found her and come to her rescue. It was safe to say that stress had been the principle cause, and Sakura was certainly no stranger to that right now.

"Miss Haruno, we know you're in there."

The hammering on the front door grew louder and Sakura drew her knees in a little tighter to her chest. They could look in any window they liked, but they wouldn't be able to see her in this enclave beneath the stairs. She watched one of their shadows pass across a square of sunlight spilling out from the kitchen.

"Open up, Miss Haruno!"

"Fat chance," she whispered to herself. What good would it do if she did, anyway? _Hi there! No, I don't have the money and I never will, we both know that, but I'm sure you'll demand to take whatever scrap of money I have on me right now._

Every bang on the door was like nails on a chalk board, raising her hackles and making her fists tighten against her sleeves. She knew they would have to go away eventually, but while they were there they set her teeth on edge. And one day, probably sooner rather than later, they would come with a bunch of lawyers and police to drag her out forcibly and repossess the house that her mother had put up as collateral on her debts.

Sakura had no idea how the woman had managed to keep a lid on those debts. Sakura hadn't even known they'd existed until her mother passed away and suddenly every responsibility that had belonged to Mrs Haruno became daughter's. They'd been living beyond their means for years, and now Sakura was paying for it. Dearly. At her current rate of income, she wouldn't be able to pay back the loan sharks for about ten years, and they were just not satisfied with that.

The squeak of the letterbox alerted Sakura that they were leaving yet another curtly worded 'reminder'. They'd go away for a while now… until the next time.

When Sakura was certain they were gone, she crawled out from beneath the stairs and grabbed the warning that had been dropped onto the welcome mat. She would put it with the rest in a pile that was growing significantly more difficult to look at every week. But what else could she do? Hospital work didn't pay enough, and Tsunade hadn't noticed her attempt to moonlight. Her only real hope was to either go door to door, begging for cash, or else take on a few of the highest class of mission available. If she survived, she'd _possibly_ be able to salvage her financial situation.

However, lucrative missions for personal gain were taking a back seat now. For now pretty much every mission would be deployed by the Hokage herself as part of the ongoing effort to pre-emptively foil Iwa and the Syndicate, and these defensive missions were badly paid, if paid at all. It could be weeks or months or even years before the enemy was neutralised and Sakura could start handpicking juicy assignments again. Then she would have to face up to life's other obstacle; namely her faceless superior.

Right now she was doing her best to casually avoid him, but this level of evasion was not sustainable. Interactions with him had been increasingly awkward lately, and the thought of taking a mission with him made her heart fill with dread. But still, that wasn't the only thing that deterred her from wanting to take missions with her team; her health, after all, had not been good lately.

Now she just had to figure out if that was because of stress… or because she'd lost her virginity about six weeks ago. The possibility of it being the latter was slim, but that was still enough to have her shaking in her boots. At least you could get over stress with a nice trip to the pharmacist to pick up some strong tranquillisers for 'a patient'. Babies were a slightly bigger, more long-term deal.

So if Sakura had been terrified of facing Kakashi before, it was nothing compared to how she felt now while in the cold grip of this brand new source of panic and stress. Sakura warned herself not to worry about it too much, simply because it was incredibly unlikely given her circumstances. But nevertheless, after her revelation at Ino's apartment, it had followed her home like a shadow and had kept her up long into the night until her exhaustion got the better of her. It was the first thing she thought of when she sat up in the morning to see her tired reflection in the mirror, and it troubled her all through breakfast.

As Sakura slipped out of the house and started her covert journey to work (just in case the sharks were hiding behind corners, waiting for her) she was torn between what to devote most of her concern to. Unpaid bills, or missed period. It did not help that everywhere she seemed to go, there were little reminders that refused to let her continue her day in peace.

"There's my baby!" cried a woman, sweeping up her pet cat from a patch of flowers that Sakura passed on her way to work.

"The plan is still in its infancy, so we can still work round it," a serious looking jonin said to his colleagues as Sakura slipped past them up the stairs of the Hokage tower.

"Have a bun, fresh from the oven!" a dinner lady in the canteen said cheerfully to Sakura, who quickly withdrew because the sticky, spicy scent hit the back of her throat and made her want to wretch.

"Argh! I'm late!" shrieked a cleric as he rushed out of the common room the moment Sakura entered it, and she honestly contemplated tripping him for his choice of words. He could only imagine the fear of a woman who was truly late.

But perhaps she was simply being hypersensitive and worrying over nothing? After all, wouldn't there have been morning sickness? It was true that her sensitivity to smell had increased and she felt sick frequently through the day, but that was always the case when she was run down. So did that even count?

But there _was _a funny sort of hard feeling in her stomach. Was that morning sickness? She'd gotten up late, so maybe one o'clock still counted as morning, right? Whatever it was, it got the worse the more Sakura thought about it, and the worse it got, the more she panicked and obsessed, so much so that when it really did turn into full blown nausea it had her scuttling to the ladies room in fear that she was about to relive her breakfast. She must have wretched at least twice to no effect, before finally willing herself to relax and stop being silly. She was just _making_ herself sick worrying like this.

When she returned from the restroom, Tsunade gave her a despairing look.. "I'm not having a zombie around the office all day!" she shouted, pointing at the door. "For god's sake, Sakura, go home!"

Shizune was slightly more compassionate and made Sakura sit down first in order to check her glands and peer under her eyelids. "You're very pale," she said. "But you don't have a temperature and your glands aren't up, so I don't think you've got anything. Maybe you just need to go home and rest for once? Maybe go to the bathhouse and get the complete work up?"

It was probably wise advise. Sakura was in no fit state to perform any job that day, however menial, so she slowly made her way down to the foyer with the intent of heading home. Only outside it was raining so heavily that people were hovering about the tower's entrance, not keen to leave. Normally Sakura suffered no such dithering and would happily risk a jog home through the rain to get wherever she was going, but today she felt unsure. Maybe it was because she felt so tired and vulnerable? Maybe it was the fact that her hand kept passing over her belly?

But that was nonsense… it just wasn't possible!

While Sakura waited for the rain to pass, she sucked on her hair anxiously and stared off into space, her mind a million miles away. She almost missed the tall, dark and vague figure who entered from the rain washed street in a cascade of water and paused a moment inside the doors to close his umbrella; but not before conscientiously flapping it and showering everyone within ten metres with rain drops. Outraged gasps and shocked _well-I-never_s sounded from all sides, but it was Sakura that he noticed first.

"Nice weather for ducks, hm?" Kakashi murmured as he moved around her, pressing the damp handle of the umbrella into her hand as he passed.

Sakura stared at him without meaning to, completely forgetting to fake a smile to reassure him, and she noticed the slightly resigned expression that crossed his eye as he shrugged and continued on his way. At his heels was a very wet pug dog who circled Sakura at least twice before trotting on after Kakashi – also pausing to shake himself next to the few remaining people who hadn't been sprayed by the umbrella, much to their distress. But it was Kakashi's expression that troubled her.

Enough was enough. Sakura couldn't cope with the dread of not knowing any longer and letting it had to her already over-generous helping of stress. At this rate she would start losing her hair. So right then and there she made up her mind and threw open the umbrella to resolutely stomp through the downpour across the avenue to find the hospital entrance. There, she rode the elevator to the fourth floor to grab a syringe and blood vial from a storage closet and proceeded to an examination room to fill it.

It didn't mean anything, she told herself as she tied a one handed tourniquet around her arm and began hunting for a vein. She'd also once tested herself for diabetes after one particularly traumatizing documentary on the television, but it wasn't like she'd really _believed_ she was ill. And likewise, she didn't really _believe_ there was anything amiss now. She was just being… _cautious._

The only problem that now presented itself was that the pathology technicians knew her face well. If she presented them with her own blood sample and ordered a test, the news would be all over the hospital faster than a virulent super-bug. She had to play it cool as she strolled up to the pathology window and planted the vial of blood down on the counter.

"I need a qualitative HCG test on this sample," she announced to the man on the other side. "For… uh…Hyuuga Hinata."

"No problem," was the routine response. "Priority?"

Sakura wanted to say "High! Highest! Do it now!" but that would likely raise a few eyebrows, so instead she gave the equally routine response. "As soon as possible, if you could."

"Ok, it's a quiet day, so we'll have the results probably by three."

"Thank you."

At a loss of what to do, Sakura began pacing corridors and wards with a vengeance. Maybe she shouldn't have done it, and maybe she shouldn't continue to entertain this madness and simply forget to go back at three to collect the results. She'd just leave them to gather dust until someone threw them out. It wasn't like it really mattered since she already knew the results. Or at least was fairly confident.

After circling the entire floor twice, she stopped by the vending machines to grab a chocolaty snack. The maternity ward sat directly opposite, but Sakura studiously pretended not to notice, and she did at least three more circuits of the other wings before daring to stop and enter. In the past she sometimes came here to coo over the tiny babies swathed in their little cotton blankets and hats. She had always known that one day she wanted one of her own, but that time wasn't now. She would have said she was too young, but in truth there were mothers on this ward who were younger than herself. Her other excuse was that she was a kunoichi, and kunoichi who got pregnant young lost everything.

Then there was the fact that she was having to scrounge basic necessities like food and water off of friends and would imminently lose the roof over her head. She couldn't be a mother. She could barely look after herself let alone a tiny, helpless creature like a baby. She wouldn't even trust herself with the most independent cat.

Unconsciously she began chew on her hair tips again as she now stared through the glass window at the rows of little newborns. Before they had struck her as the most adorable sight in the world. Now each cradle was nothing more than a container of responsibility and shrieking and dirty diapers and hunger and a bottomless pit down which money flowed, never to be seen again.

They terrified her, and her stomach began to twist in sickening knots.

She had to tear herself away before she began hyperventilating, or someone saw her and guessed why she was staring at sleeping babies like they were after her soul. Drifting past the pathology lab entrance once more, she scoured the row of pigeon holes, looking for a folder with the name of Hyuuga Hinata written on it. But there was nothing, so Sakura circled the entire hospital before coming back to recheck. Still nothing.

What would Kakashi think if he knew she was doing this? If he even knew what she suspected? She sighed to think of the resigned look he'd worn earlier as he'd walked away from her. It was her who was making things difficult between them. He knew that and so did she, but she couldn't help it. Not when her first time and so tragic and embarrassing… and he was the only one who knew, and yet he just had _no_ _idea_!

Hell, even Sakura had very little idea these days. She tried to recall the events of the night that had led to this, but she'd found to her dismay that with every passing week it was getting harder and harder to recall. It probably had something to do with the concussion she'd had. Either way, the events of six weeks ago felt more like an abstract dream she'd once had rather than anything real. She remembered some things… like struggling to stay afloat in the river while someone shouted her name, or her panties and bra dangling from a washing line above her head, or Sasuke's face when he realized… and Kakashi's shoulder as she spent half the night weeping against it until her throat turned raw. But it could easily have happened to someone else for how distant that memories felt now.

For a while she'd been able to look in the mirror and see the marks upon her own neck, and that had been enough to remind her about what had happened. If it wasn't for her relationship with Kakashi, she could easily have believed she'd imagined the whole thing.

Right now she really wished she had.

At two-thirty, Sakura felt compelled to go slink past the pathology lab again. She just wanted to get this over with. Tonight she'd crack open a bottle of vodka or something and laugh herself to death at how much she'd managed to scare herself over nothing. Maybe she'd even save the results for her scrapbook under a new entry called '_First Pregnancy Scare'._ And then tomorrow she'd go straight back on the injection and bear the headaches and other side-effects with a grin, as long as it meant she never had to feel this fear ever again.

But the moment she turned the corner, her heart stuttered to a near stop. A girl with flowing blonde hair was already standing next to the pigeonholes beside the pathology window with an open folder in her hand.

Ino's nose for drama could never, _ever_ be underestimate.

She looked up the moment Sakura came into sight and a wide grin spread across her face. "Oh, Sakura," she said. "You'll never guess what our little Hinata-chan has been up to!"

"Ino… no… you can't do this," Sakura said haltingly, suddenly absolutely terrified of Ino's smile the way she'd never been before.

"Stuff that! If she didn't want people to find out, she shouldn't have used her real name!" She whirled over to all but shove the folder into Sakura's face. "Look!" she said, pointing to the printed page within, practically delirious with such a gem of gossip. "She's pregnant! Can you believe that? Who do you wanna bet did it? She's a bit soft on Naruto, so maybe, although perhaps she gave into Kiba? What do you think? Oh, I want to be in that room when her father finds out! He seems the type to go ape over an unexpected grandkid, don't you think? Right? Sakura? Don't you think?"

Sakura couldn't say anything. Her eyes stared glassily at the spiked marks on the graph and the unmistakable _positive_ printed next to the circled HCG test. There was no mistaking this.

Few things in life could change your future so dramatically in just a few scant seconds that the realization left you dizzy and reeling. One was stealing a kiss from a man when both their emotions were running too high for it to end only with a kiss.

The other was realizing that this error had resulted in the creation of a new life.

* * *

Outside the ANBU headquarters in the third district of Konoha, four shinobi skulked beneath the eaves, looking out upon the wet street while they waited for the rain to stop. Genma flicked his damp hair back and bounced a senbon between his lips.

"I was thinking of using poison with these guys," he said conversationally as the other three looked at him blankly. "It's all the rage now, I hear."

"Expensive," Raido said flatly.

"Effective though," mused Shizune, who was a bit of a poisons specialist herself. "I wouldn't advise putting them in your mouth if you did it though…"

Genma grunted. "Can't train an old dog out of bad habits," he grumbled. Then he sighed. "You know, after that mission up to the north I was looking forward to coming back to warm, balmy Konoha. And what does it do all week? It fucking rains. I hope it doesn't keep this up during our expedition next week. There's nothing worse than spying in shoes that squelch."

"Except maybe dying in shoes that squelch."

The three ninja looked at their fourth companion who was crouched with his back against the wall and his eyes closed.

"You depressing asshole, Kakashi," Genma said. "You know the rules."

They weren't official rules, but it was generally understood in shinobi etiquette that it was in poor taste to make ominous predictions of death before a high-class mission. Especially with the ones lined up right now that wreaked of 'pre-war jitters'. Those who remembered the last world war were not keen for another repeat so soon. But they couldn't ignore the signs. With so many ninja being sent out across the land on various missions to learn the scope of the threat of this criminal organization, it was likely something would happen soon.

"I was planning on being an old fart before the next war," Raido admitted, "so I could stay at home and preach to the newbies about how our war was harder and they don't know they're born."

Genma spit his senbon at the ground where it stuck. "If it comes to war, it won't last long."

"Oh yeah?" Shizune murmured curiously.

Genma shrugged. "We have the kyuubi on our side."

"Yeah, and Iwa's got the syndicate under their thumb," Raido replied. "Those guys are everywhere."

"Pussy. The syndicate is just a bunch of small town crooks. They may be everywhere, but they're not warriors." Genma smirked and slipped a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He selected one and lit it with a flick of a lighter. He propped it between his lips like his senbon, and for a while they all stood in silence, still waiting for the constant hammer of rain to end.

Eventually Genma slid a look at Kakashi. "Hey, you're awful quiet today."

"I'm always quiet," Kakashi replied evenly.

"Yeah, but normally you're sort of vague-nothing-to-say quiet. Lately you're kinda don't-talk-to-me quiet. Something biting you?"

"Girl trouble," Shizune said too insightfully, hitting rather close to the mark for a first attempt.

"Let me guess," Genma said as he flicked ash from the tip of his cigarette into the rain. "You like a girl, but you freaked her out with your weirdness and now she won't come near you and fends you off with a broom if you try to go near her. Isn't that right?"

Kakashi rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Something like that."

"Another noble man brought low by the fairer sex. There's something to be said for being a queer, right Raido?"

"Bite me."

"Or maybe not. Commissary smoke, Hatake?" Genma asked, holding out the packet to Kakashi.

"I quit fifteen years ago," Kakashi said, but as Genma's hand began to retreat he added, "I didn't say no."

It wasn't totally a lie. He _had_ quit fifteen years ago; he was just suffering the worst relapse since then, that was all, and he felt he deserved at least some small bliss in the quagmire he'd gotten himself into. He pulled down his mask and took one drag, then two, and then held it aloft in his hand with his arm on his knee, watching the thin wisps of smoke rising into the air as the cigarette steadily burned down.

"You guys ever do something very, _very _stupid?" he asked.

They looked at him, perplexed. "How'd you mean?" Genma asked.

Kakashi stared at the burning tip of the cigarette, half mesmerized. "Like… get carried away and sleep with someone you really shouldn't?"

Genma and Raido glanced at each before quickly looking away with a cough.

"I'm not actually talking about myself though," Kakashi added quickly, but perhaps a little too late to be believed.

"Everyone does that at some point," Shizune said absently. "I once screwed my sister's fiancé."

Genma gave her a mock dirty look. "You whore!" he accused. "It's all coming out now, my friends. Wait till the Hokage hears about this!"

"It's ok!" Shizune said defensively. "She was going to ditch him anyway. It was just a stupid mistake after a battle… we were both alone and horny, and so it just sort of _happened_."

"Yeah, but everyone gets horny after a fight, don't they?" Genma pointed out.

"I guess. It's not exactly my area, but I think I read in a medical publication once that it's a natural biological response to being in a life and death situation. The first instinct is often to procreate. Why do you think so many babies are born nine months after a war starts and nine months after it ends?"

"Now _that_ I look forward to," Genma said, looking up dreamily at the falling sky. "Girls really put out after a war."

"You have to win it though," Raido pointed out. "You won't get much tail if we lose and get occupied by rock nin. And you won't be fathering many children as a corpse."

"Raido – the rules!"

"Sorry. I'm sure you'll live forever and father hundreds of children."

"Thank you."

Shizune sighed and gazed up thoughtfully. "Which one of us do you think will start a family first?"

"You," Raido and Genma chorused.

"Eh?" she deadpanned. "How come?"

"It's quite simple," Genma explained, "you're a woman with a biological clock who asks the sort of question you just asked, Raido is a shirt-lifter, I had that accidental vasectomy five years ago, and any girl who goes for Kakashi has either been lobotomized or needs to be. The earth will collide with the sun long before any of us three have kids. You, on the other hand, are probably due any day now. Hey, Kakashi, where are you going?"

Kakashi had stood up and was popping his neck. "Home," he said simply.

"It's still raining."

"I don't care," Kakashi grumbled.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged off through the rain, ignoring the unpleasant dribbles down the back of his neck. His mind was thoroughly preoccupied with other thoughts as it had been for several days now. But now he had new things to chew on, such as what Pakkun had said as they'd headed up the elevator of the Hokage tower.

"See," he had said to his pug, "she hates me."

"Not hate…" Pakkun had replied, licking his paws. "She stunk of fear."

"Fear?" Kakashi repeated softly.

"And something else too, but I don't know what."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Pakkun said again. "Human pheromones and scents… they're like a completely different language. I can recognize some things, but just because I can smell something doesn't mean I know what it says."

"Alright, alright," Kakashi had sighed finally. "Thanks anyway. You can head back now."

Now he was left with the unpleasant thought that, rather than hating him, Sakura actually _feared _him. What on earth had he done to inflict that kind of reaction? He'd never dream of hurting her, and she had to know that, so why did she stand there staring at him, wreaking of fear?

The cigarette steadily burned down until by the time he was standing outside his apartment block, it was nothing more than a stub. He flicked it into a puddle, vowed to himself that it would be another fifteen years before he did that again, and entered the small courtyard that was more like a small garden thanks to the landlady's numerous plants and flowered trellises. His apartment was up on the second floor, and Kakashi ascended the slippery steps to his doorway, thankful that at least there was an awning to keep the worst of the rain off his head while he searched his pockets for a key. For the life of him, he could never remember which pocket or pouch he kept it in, and then there were times when it simply disappeared from his life completely, leaving him having to pick his own lock for a few weeks before it mysteriously turned up under one of the meeting tables at headquarters. This seemed to be one of those times.

While Kakashi rooted around for the elusive key, he suddenly became aware that someone was already standing outside his apartment door. For an instant, through the muggy haze of mist, he assumed it was one of his neighbors. Then she moved and her pink hair caught the light, rendering Kakashi utterly speechless.

This was the last thing he'd expected.

Cautiously, he approached, frowning as he tried to figure out why she would be here. In her hand she held his umbrella, but it seemed an odd moment to return it since it was still raining and she had a long walk home yet. The expression on her face was nothing short of stricken. She clearly had more serious things on her mind than returning umbrellas.

"Sakura," he said softly, not wishing to see her look at him like a scared rabbit again. "What are you doing?"

She inhaled sharply like she was about to launch into an explanation, but her lips formed no words. Her fingers tightened around his umbrella in an agitated way that was sure to break it. Kakashi decided not to mention it, and waited patiently for her to get off what was on her chest.

"I…" she began, her voice hoarse. "I'm…"

He raised an eyebrow in anticipation, and was faintly alarmed to see Sakura's eyes suddenly turn glossy with tears.

"I'm…" she tried again, even more brokenly than before. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She pressed a hand over her mouth and lowered her eyes, trying to desperately hard to control herself. A crying girl was always a little awkward, and Kakashi wondered if he should do something human… like maybe touch her shoulder in a compassionate way.

No. She didn't like him touching her.

He stood uneasily. "Look, I don't know what you're apologising for, for I forgive you. That's a given." he said.

She shook her head. "That mission. The one to Jonan. When I kissed Sasuke, I-" she broke off for a moment, as if trying to rally her nerves before continuing. "You were on the radio. You knew what I did."

He didn't like where this was going. This conversation had been conspicuously absent for six whole weeks, and right now he hadn't realised how much he'd appreciated that.

"If you knew," she went on shakily. "Why did you…"

"What did I what?" he asked quietly.

"I-I don't remember everything clearly. But… I know it was me. It was my fault," she said. "But if you knew I'd kissed Sasuke, why did you let me kiss you back in the hotel room?"

Kakashi stood stiffly, cold, wet and miserable and non the happier for the direction this discussion had taken. "Is that important?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Look, well…yeah, see…um…" He was making a mess of this. "I'm a guy."

She stared at him through shining eyes. "Is that it? Is that your answer?"

"Yeah…"

"There was no meaning in it for you? None at all?"

He shifted awkwardly, shoulders hunched in guilt and shame the same way they'd been the morning after that fateful night. "Sakura, we're both adults," he began gruffly. "You know-"

"I know – I know how it goes," she said wretchedly, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes. "You don't have to say it again. I'm sorry. I just… I keep messing up, don't I?"

He watched her warily, the epitome of distress of one kind of another, and he felt helpless. Better men than him would know what to do. Better men would have the courage to reach out and take her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be ok. It wasn't necessarily fear that made him keep his distance; he just didn't know any better. He didn't know how to be better.

"We both made mistakes that night," he said heavily, "but there's no taking it back and we can't stay like this. So if you really want to make it up to me, you'll come along on our next mission tomorrow. It'll do you some good. It'll do _us_ some good."

Her eyes flew up and she stopped crying with a soft hiccup. "I can't," she said in a tiny voice behind her hand.

He scowled. "Let me guess, you're busy?" he asked dryly, and not that kindly.

She took a shuddering breath, but seemed incapable of answering.

It was time to get tough on her. "Ok, I'll make it simple," he said quietly. "If you don't come on the next mission, I can only assume that you're out. I'll get a permanent replacement for you, and you can reassign yourself at your leisure. Is that what you want?"

Sakura's already pale face washed a shade whiter and she stared at him in hurt bemusement. "No…" she whispered.

"Then you're coming," he said with finality, allowing no room for protest or argument. He moved his hand to lightly touch her upper arm, and as predicted she flinched sideways, allowing him access to his door. As he took out two picks from his pouch and inserted them into his lock with practised ease, he looked back at Sakura over his shoulder. "It's time we put it behind us, Sakura. We both messed up. You should go home and rest," he told her. "You look like hell."

She had turned before he'd even finished speaking and was walking away, down the steps and back into the rain. Kakashi paused in his lock-picking to watch her leave. He didn't like that. Not at all. It wasn't in Sakura's character accede so easily and passively, or walk into the rain with an umbrella and forget to open it.

He couldn't say he really related to her. When his father had died, he'd been much younger than Sakura, and his father had left him with enough money that he could have lain in bed the rest of his life. But if she was _really_ struggling, then why didn't she simply ask for help? Perhaps Kakashi giving her money might seem a little awkward, but there was always Naruto. After Jiraiya had died, he'd left his entire fortune to that boy, and the lucrative gold mine that was the best selling Icha Icha series was now Naruto's. As of yet he hadn't really figured out a way to spend it, but he'd certainly buy out Sakura's debt in a heartbeat if she asked him.

Did she think she had something to prove by fighting a losing battle alone? Was she embarrassed by it?

It was clearly taking its toll on her body and mind, so Kakashi knew he had to get her out of the village for a while. The break would do her good, and she'd see that eventually. Maybe she would even be grateful toward him?

His lock popped open with a snap, allowing him into his own living room where it was warm and dry and ever so toasty. This probably had something to do with the fact that Pakkun was lying in the middle of the floor, curled up next to a blazing electric heater.

"Isn't it about time you got a locksmith?" Pakkun rumbled.

"You could have let me in," Kakashi retorted.

"I can't work anything but doggy doors." Pakkun stretched his legs and rolled onto his back. "What did Wild Orchid want?"

"Hm? Oh, I don't know," Kakashi shrugged out of his vest and tugged down his damp mask to breathe better. "I think she just wanted to apologise about her behaviour."

Pakkun gave an upside down sneeze. "No, she didn't. Before you arrived, she was shouting and swearing and kicking the door and saying something it being all your fault. Five minutes ago she was ready to tear your head off and stuff you with straw. Must have chickened out when she saw you though…"

Kakashi stared at him, not entirely sure about what he was hearing. "You sure?" he asked incredulously.

"What _did_ you do to her?" Pakkun asked.

Once again Kakashi just sighed and said the same thing he'd said before. "You wouldn't understand."

And he wouldn't. Because Pakkun was a dog, and when a female dog came into heat, you fucked her, she liked it, and everyone went home happy. This human concept of fragile relationships with firm boundaries on what kind of behaviour is and is not permitted between two individuals was a concept that Pakkun had expressed exasperation with in the past. Kakashi could explain he'd slept with his junior subordinate in a fit of insanity and that this had been a grave violation of their kind of relationship, both professionally and personally, but Pakkun would only whine and say humans overcomplicated perfectly simple matters for no good reason.

And he would most likely be right.

Not that it would change anything.

"Whatever you did, you really pissed her off," the dog grunted. "She's a bit crazy though. I still can't figure out if she's a nice girl with a monster temper or a monster who uses a nice girl act." He cocked an ear at Kakashi. "Where's my sausages?"

"At the butcher's. I forgot."

He flopped down on his sofa and belatedly kicked his wet shoes off. Tired as was, he couldn't help but worry about Sakura. There was only so much he could do to stop her sabotaging her own life, and that did nothing to assuage the guilt he felt.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Dangers of Imitation Chicken_


	8. The Dangers of Imitation Chicken

**House of Crows**

Chapter Seven: The Dangers of Imitation Chicken

* * *

_You can brave decisions_

_before you crumble up inside_

_spend your time asking everyone else's permission_

_then run away and hide_

* * *

The tension hung heavily over Team Kakashi that day as they set off, but deciding who was the cause was difficult. Sai was as reticent as ever, so it probably wasn't him though he certainly wasn't helping. Sakura looked as grey as a corpse, so it might have been her. What was unusual was that she was quite obviously out of sorts, and either Kakashi hadn't noticed or was ignoring it. Normally he was very attentive to minor upsets in team health or morale, so for him to take one look at Sakura who turned up looking like she'd been awake all night howling at the moon, and to not even ask if she was fit enough for this mission was unusual for their team leader.

At least it wasn't Ino this time. Naruto was a little fed up having a rival boisterous blonde on the team, so to see Sakura back on board for this mission was a relief. She'd said before that the reason she had been skipping missions was because of her other responsibilities to the Hokage, but now that she was here walking with them in dour silence, Naruto had to wonder if it was more that she just didn't want to be here. Had one of them offended her by accident? Almost certainly Sai had. Possibly Kakashi. Naruto hoped that it wasn't _himself_ that she was annoyed with.

She avoided looking at anyone, instead fixing her gaze hard on the road before her feet, making it difficult to decide exactly what or who her problem might be with. Naruto tried to sidle up to her a few times to cheer her up, but he was always met with a stoic antisocial wall of indifference.

"Got anything planned for the weekend, Sakura-chan?" he asked cheerfully.

Sakura shrugged. "Not really," she said in a dull, flat tone. She wasn't interested in conversation.

Ahead, Naruto noticed Kakashi glance back at them with a frown, though he said nothing.

"Hey, when we get back," Naruto carried on regardless, "we should do something fun! Like, go see a picture, or go swimming or something. It's been ages since we did anything together."

"Yeah, maybe," Sakura said without real committal.

"Are you ok?"

Sakura sighed inwardly. No, she was _not _ok. She'd woken up feeling like death warmed up, and nothing much had improved since then, not while she was being frogmarched across the country when all she wanted to do was sit down in a cool place and have a long nap. She chanced a glance at Kakashi's back. _He _was the one forcing her out here, and _he_ was the one who'd put her in this state to begin with.

Anger made her hands clench, and Kakashi half-turned his head toward her, almost as if he felt her burning glare, but then seemed to change his mind. Rather wisely too. Sakura was in a mood to throw things at him – sharp things – if he so much as breathed wrong.

She had been so ready to do it yesterday. After shoving the test results back into Ino's hands, she'd stormed straight to the one place she knew Kakashi would have to show up eventually. She'd been filled with such blind fear and panic that she could hardly describe herself as stable. She hadn't even known what she would do or say when she saw Kakashi, only that she would probably hit him, and hit him hard. On a primal level she wanted to give him just an ounce of the kind of pain and fear that was thundering through her veins. She'd at least known that if she didn't tell him immediately, she would lose her nerve.

Then he'd shown up, drenched to the bone with rain, and so formal and so… _untouchable_. Sakura's courage had failed after all. Without the terror and rage to guide her, how could she find the words to explain to him? Not even when he'd handed her that callous ultimatum had she been able to explain why she _couldn't_ come on this mission. How did you tell a man you were pregnant when he treated you so coolly, like you were nothing more to him than an errant subordinate? Because that's how he saw her. He didn't know that…

He didn't know.

But she would have to tell him eventually. Sooner rather than later. Probably. Clearly now was not the time; not when they were on a mission with their other teammates. News like this had to be broken in a more appropriate place… preferably sitting down in a comfy chair with a strong bottle of alcohol and a hospital stretcher on standby.

Actually, Sakura could only guess at Kakashi's reaction. She looked at him and tried to imagine, but it was far removed from any of their typical interactions so far. Somehow she doubted that he would be terribly pleased by the news, but did that mean he would be angry? Indifferent? Supportive? Was telling him just going to create more problems for her than leaving him in the dark? What would she do if he told her to get rid of it? What would she do if he told her to _keep_ it? Or would he just write it off as Sakura's problem alone?

Sakura herself had no idea what she wanted…

Right at this moment, however, she knew that she wanted to go home. They'd only been travelling for perhaps six hours and Sakura was already stumbling over her own feet. Her eyes kept sliding shut of their own accord and her mouth opened often to ask for a rest, but shame at her lack of stamina made her close it again.

Then suddenly her head began to feel fizzy and light and the long straight horizon ahead of her tipped dramatically. The sensation in her arms and legs fled, and without meaning to, she found herself dropping calmly to her knees and rolling onto her back in the middle of the road. She just couldn't support her own weight anymore.

"Sakura!" Naruto was too late to catch her.

"I just need to lie down for a minute," she said faintly, limp and boneless and far too hot.

Naruto's shape above her was shooed away and then Kakashi was there, kneeling beside silently to press his fingers against her neck. He pushed up his hitai-ate and touched his hand to his own forehead before passing it over Sakura's, checking the temperature.

"Have you eaten today?" he asked.

Sakura shook her head.

"Not another diet," he sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder to prevent her sitting upright in indignation. "Naruto, get the water canteen. Sai, find a good camp spot."

"What's wrong with her?" Naruto asked anxiously as he handed over the bottle of water.

"She's alright. Her blood pressure just took a nosedive, that's all. She's dehydrated." Kakashi slid a hand beneath her back to raise her up while the other held the canteen to her lips. "So drink."

"Who's the medic here?" she grumbled, taking small sips.

"I was wondering that myself," he replied pointedly.

"It's your fault for dragging me out here," she said with a touch of venom. Some of the water slopped down her front unpleasantly.

"Or rather yours for avoiding training for the past couple of weeks." He shrugged easily. "If you let your fitness slide, this kind of thing will happen."

"I'm not fat!" Sakura snapped.

"I never implied otherwise."

Sai's voice interrupted them. "Over here," he called from the treeline.

"Alright, can you walk?" Kakashi asked Sakura.

"Yes," she said optimistically, because the alternative was that he carry her, and she didn't fancy that at all.

Very carefully she got to her feet, but it was Naruto she decided to lean on for support. He was closer to her height anyway and she didn't get a flutter of intimidation when she could hang onto his shoulder. As they made their way to their impromptu campsite, Sakura's limbs still felt heavy and her head light, but at least it wasn't as bad as before.

Sai's chosen spot was just out of sight of the road in a place where the ferns fell away to create a small, narrow clearing. Sakura had never enjoyed the smell of ferns, but now the green, sticky smell made her want to breathe through her mouth. She sat down next to Naruto on a soft carpet of moss and she was touched by his concern as he attempted to fuss over her. The other two were far less concerned. Sai was busy setting up the gas fire for cooking while Kakashi took out his mission scroll and a pen, presumably to recalculate some details as a result of this unexpected detour.

"You feeling better, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.

"A little," Sakura replied. "I'm alright really. It'll pass."

He still remained anxious though. After all, the last time Sakura had keeled over for no apparent reason had been when he'd struck her in the midst of a kyuubi induced craze and unwittingly poisoned her. She wanted to reassure him, but she knew she wouldn't be explaining to him anytime soon what was really wrong with her.

"Was this all we brought?" Sai asked Kakashi incredulously, holding up a handful of instant stew 'powdered chicken' sachets that he's retrieved from the supplies bag.

"What's wrong with them?" Kakashi asked without looking up.

"I don't like chicken."

Kakashi gave him a stupefied look. "Who doesn't like chicken?"

Powdered chicken it was then. Since Sakura was still sitting in a pale, woozy huddle on the ground, it went unsaid that she was off cooking duty. That now fell on Sai who dropped a bowl of water over the gas cooker and filled it with four sachets of instant stew. While he waited for it to boil, he sat down on Sakura's other side; closer than usual in a move that he'd probably calculated to within an inch of his life in order to show the correct amount of concern while maintaining personal space. Nevertheless Sakura glanced at his expressionless demeanour and wondered if he privately thought she was being a nuisance. The fact that he didn't even seem to question what might be wrong with her gave her the unpleasant feeling he expected stuff like this from her, even though it had been a long time since she'd last held the team back in any way.

Naruto, on the other hand, while tolerant of female foibles, couldn't contain his touch of impatience. He lived for missions and getting stuck in like an overeager rat to a pie, and he would rather be marching towards his goal than sitting here waiting for Sakura's funny spell to wear off.

"Keep drinking, Sakura," Kakashi called, tapping his pen against his scroll.

What did _he_ think of her now, she wondered. Exasperated and a little annoyed, she could detect that much. When he looked across at her for a moment, he wore a deep scowl, but that could mean any number of things – concentration on his finely tuned calculations, concern for her condition, or irritation at the nuisance she was making of herself.

It didn't help that the smell of the powdered chicken was wafting over her in sickening waves. Sakura was suddenly sure she'd never smelt anything quite so putrid, and an unpleasant tingling swept her body as her stomach tightened and her mouth went dry. She knew this feeling. She was going to be sick.

Covering her nose didn't help. Neither did taking measured breathes through her mouth. Cold sweat broke out all over her body as she stood rather ungracefully and turned to stumble quickly away from the camp. She just needed to get away from that _smell…_

"What's she doing?" she heard Sai ask.

"Sakura-chan, where are you going?" Naruto called more loudly.

"Stay… stay there, don't look," she gasped, trying to push her way through the ferns as quickly as she could. She didn't want them to see or hear her… but the stench of the ferns was the final straw. The bile rose unstoppably and Sakura fell to her knees with a thump, retching miserably amongst the roots of an old tree.

"Whoa!" Naruto cried out, shooting to his feet.

What perhaps made the whole ordeal worse was that Sakura had nothing in her stomach to bring back up. The acid burned her throat, her hair was trying its best to get in her way, and then one of the others was standing next to her of all things. It would be _him _naturally, and though he lifted her hair from her face, it was only a mild comfort since he was the last person she wanted to have witness something like this.

When the final paroxysm faded, Sakura sat back on her heels, feeling oddly better.

"Finished?" Kakashi asked succinctly.

She nodded, and found him dangling the water canteen before her as well as a couple of cleansing wipes from the medic kit. Sakura took them silently, refusing to look up at him and acknowledge that she sat before him with vomit on her chin. Not cool. Not sexy. Was he looking at her and wondering how on earth he'd ever wanted to fuck her?

"I told you I couldn't come," she said quietly, wiping her mouth.

"Stay here," he said shortly and pushed away through the ferns back to the other two.

Sakura had no problem with that order. She remained sitting to swill a few mouthfuls of water to rid herself of the taste of her own vomit before she began to slowly sip the canteen, replenishing her stomach fluids. Behind her she could hear the low murmur of a quiet conversation going on between her three teammates, and when she looked back she was surprised to see them beginning to collect their bags and pack away the cooking equipment.

She got to her feet shakily and shot Kakashi a confused look when he turned to her.

"We're going back," he told her. "You're no good to us if you're sick. It would have been nice if you'd told me beforehand, then we wouldn't have wasted this trip."

"You told me I was out off the team if I didn't come on this mission!" she accused. "What choice did that leave me?"

Naruto stopped short. "Is that true?" he demanded of Kakashi.

Their team leader sighed. "Believe it or not, I am a reasonable human being, Sakura. I wouldn't have forced you if I knew you were genuinely sick."

So _of course_ it was her fault; she'd cried wolf too many times to her own detriment. Sakura decided to drop it, as there were few ways this line of conversation could end that didn't end in her putting a foot in her mouth. Better he thought she was just sick and they all went home to try again another day, though Sakura knew she could expect this kind of performance again and again over the next month or two. She'd spoken too soon about morning sickness. It had raised its ugly head spectacularly today.

Thus began the long six hour trip home. Naruto was the one who carried her most of the way, and though Sakura preferred to be carried on his back more than anyone else's, she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that Kakashi hadn't even offered. And despite how apparently patient her team was being with her – asking how she was feeling every half hour and stopping occasionally to bombard her with water and some inoffensive wafers – she could detect their annoyance at being forced to head back. Naruto had a disgruntled stump to his step and Sai seemed twice as silent. Kakashi, however, was as closed off as ever and it was still difficult to tell what he thought… though she got the sense that he was more confused than anything else.

And when they finally rolled back in through the gates of Konoha at midnight, Sakura was immediately carried off to the hospital, despite her protests that she was feeling fine now and just needed to go home. None of them believed her, so Sakura had to endure being poked and prodded by a dreary medic on the graveyard shift.

"You seem alright to me," he said, fighting back a yawn as he peered into her mouth and checked her glands. "You said she fainted and then vomited?"

"Yeah, it was really gross," Naruto said helpfully.

She glared at him ferociously.

"Any knocks to the head?" The medic asked her.

"Not recently," she replied honestly.

"You're up to date with your inoculations?"

"All of them." As long as you didn't count the one against babies.

The medic shrugged at his seemingly healthy patient. "Sounds like heat exhaustion maybe. Keep drinking and you should be alright."

"_I _could have told you that," Sakura said impatiently and hopped down from the examination table.

Naruto sighed and walked out ahead of them. "What a pointless day…" Sai drifted out after him, probably thinking the same.

Sakura tried to follow them, but Kakashi's hand hooked in her elbow and pulled her to a stop. His touch alone made her skin tingle with unbearable awareness, and she glanced at him distractedly. "What?"

"Are you really alright?" he asked.

"Yes," she said emphatically. "Stop asking."

"No. I mean, is this going to happen again tomorrow?" he raised an eyebrow and awaited her response.

Sakura shifted her weight awkwardly and shrugged. "Probably."

He released her and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Fine. I'll talk to Ino and see if she'll take your place."

"Permanently?" she asked anxiously.

"You can't help it if you're sick. Though I know damn well its not heat exhaustion."

Sakura paled a little, suddenly frightened that he'd figured it all out anyway.

"Sakura," he said a little more softly. "You don't have anything to prove. If you need money, your friends are more than willing to help you out, because that's far better than watching you run yourself into an early grave because of your unfortunate debts."

Oh, jeez. He was one step behind her. Sakura too had thought that her symptoms were stress related (and some of them probably were anyway) but now that she knew better she could only dismiss him with a roll of the eyes. "I'll be fine," she said impatiently. "I'm just…"

_Just what? Just Pregnant?_

No, this wasn't the time or place for that kind of confession. There were nurses, medics, and cleaners rushing past the door only a few feet away, and they were all exhausted and edging to go home.

"…just tired," she finished, knowing it was an unsatisfactory answer for Kakashi if his faint frown was anything to go by. "And hungry." Starving, in fact, now that she thought about it. Even that dreadful chicken stew seemed appetising.

Kakashi seemed to relax visibly with a faint sound of amusement. "I'm sure the cafeteria is still open," he said. "You could do with a little more food by the looks of you."

A jab of paranoia made Sakura flinch over that remark. Was it a dig at her? Was she getting fatter already? If so, it was suddenly very tempting to point a finger at him and inform him the weight was _his _fault entirely. He wouldn't find it nearly so amusing then. "You don't have to make fun of me," she said hotly, turning to leave.

"I wasn't making-"

"Yes, you were."

She turned to exit the examination room, wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible – not because he'd offended her, but because of the guilt she felt just standing next to him. It was a guilt that wasn't going to go away as long as she remained silent, and that thought alone made her pause reluctantly and turn back towards him. Now she saw how her flippant remark had landed, and all she was met with was an irritated glare.

Not a very receptive mood in which to pitch a confession, she thought.

"Sensei, I think we need to talk," she began, forcing the words out of her mouth with a real effort. It was getting kind of hard to look him in the eye now, and her gaze fell to sideboard instead.

"I'm all ears," he replied shortly.

Seven weeks ago, she would have leapt upon the excuse to make a teasing remark about the size of his ears, but nothing seemed all that funny when you were scared half to death. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she would have been surprised if he couldn't hear it from where he was standing. "Not here," she said. "Here isn't a good place. Um… maybe you could drop by my house tomorrow?"

She looked up at him hopefully to judge his reaction, but he was just staring back at her like the listless bastard he was. "What exactly is it you want to discuss?" he asked carefully, as if suspecting a trap. She knew he probably expected her to be waiting in her living room with an axe or something.

"I told you: not here," she said, glancing unhappily towards the door as another nurse strode past, humming. If Sakura could make out the tune, they could almost certainly be overheard.

"Well… is it important?" he hedged again.

She could tell he didn't want to come at all. It was tempting to dismiss him and say it wasn't important anyway, but she'd been a coward last night, and she didn't want to spend day after day agonising over when she would tell him. It was better she pick a date and make sure she left herself no room to chicken out. "It's pretty important," she said quietly. And just knowing she would have to be totally honest tomorrow was already beginning to turn her knees to jelly.

Kakashi shrugged. "Ok," he said curiously. "What time?"

If she gave him a time, he would only miss it. "Any. I don't care."

He cocked his head. "I have some stuff to do first thing… so I'll probably be able to make it before lunch."

"That's fine."

She couldn't think what else to say after that, and neither could Kakashi judging by the awkward silence. Unconsciously she reached up to tug on a lock of hair, dragging it towards her mouth to suck as she so often did when she was nervous. "I guess, that's all," she said.

"Yeah." He was frowning at her.

"Well… bye then."

"Bye."

She left him in the examination room and headed out into the dark streets. The avenue of restaurants and cafés that she normally avoided for fear of the nausea was now a smell that drew her in like a siren's song, because she hadn't been joking when she said she was hungry. Having eaten nothing but wafers, she'd been all but ready to start gnawing on Kakashi if she'd stayed much longer.

In all likeliness she probably had the pregnancy to thank for her horribly contrary appetite. If the sight and smell of food wasn't knocking her sick, it was making her stomach growl in longing. And even though she had very little money to her name these days, she had enough coins in her pocket to buy two things she never normally bought – a whole bag of oranges and a stack of ramen cartons.

That night she went to bed with a full stomach, but her restless thoughts kept her up late into the morning. Previous sleepless nights had been attributed to bills and mortgages and thoughts of war. That all seemed quite trivial now that she was going to be a mother, and her most pressing challenge yet was… how the _hell_ was she going to break it to the father?

* * *

The air was cool and fresh, but the morning light was always a little too sharp for Kakashi's taste. Birds twittered away in the trees surrounding the cenotaph, and Kakashi couldn't help it. He yawned.

"'Scuse me," he apologised to the names on the stone tablet.

He didn't normally arrive this early at the war memorial, but today he had plans that he needed to execute early bird style if he wanted to catch the worm.

And by 'worm', he meant Ino.

He knew that in the mornings she worked at her family's flower shop, and if he was going to find her, that was the best place to catch her. But by the time he left the cenotaph and arrived at the flower shop, Ino's blonde aunt informed him that she'd already left, and of course she had no idea where her niece had gone. It took him the rest of the morning to track her down but eventually he found someone who had last seen her heading to the library a few minutes beforehand.

He didn't want to have to resort to this with every new team mission these days. Ino did as well as could be expected, but she was no real replacement for Sakura. Her skills did not compliment Team Kakashi the way Sakura's did, and her rapport with her teammates could be strained sometimes. She was far too like Naruto to do anything but create friction, and her attempts to suck up were a hell of a lot more transparent than Sakura's.

But she was tolerable enough compared to some alternatives.

The library was as stuffy and quiet as usual, something broken up only occasionally by a cough or the sound of someone dropping books and scrolls and apologising amidst a chorus of hisses and shushes. Exhausted academic students littered the tables everywhere he turned, but there was no sign of Ino. In fact, he was surprised she would even come to a place like this. Libraries just didn't seem to suit her.

"Goddamit, why won't this thing work?"

"Shh!"

"Don't 'shh' me!"

Well, maybe he couldn't see her, but he could definitely hear her. Kakashi changed direction and slipped behind a slouching bookcase of scrolls to find the blonde leaning over a photocopying machine, jabbing at the buttons manically.

"Having issues?" he asked.

She turned to pin him with an annoyed look, but the moment she recognised him she turned coy and flirtatious. "I have lots of issues, Kaka-sensei," she said, using a nickname she'd lifted straight from Sakura. "I'm a complicated girl."

"You have to put the money in first," he informed her, moving forward to point out the coin slot.

"You have to pay for these things?" she pouted and propped a fist on a carefully angled hip. "Well, that's no good. I didn't bring any money."

That line probably worked on quite a few men, and no doubt Ino was as good at shirking the bill as Kakashi was. He wouldn't have dreamed of doing her a favour on a normal day, but since he was here to ask a favour of his own, it was only fair.

"You wouldn't happen to be free for the next week, would you, Ino?" he asked casually as he searched around in his pocket for a couple of coins.

"Hm?" Her mouth curled in a more prominent smile and she leant her hip against the machine. "I might, depending on what you ask of me."

"There's a mission-"

"Of course there is," she scoffed. "Let me guess, Sakura's bailed out again."

"More or less. She's sick."

Ino frowned at him. "Sick? How sick? How do you know she isn't faking?"

"White as a sheet and throwing up… it's hard to fake those things," he said with a shrug. "How many copies do you want?"

"Oh, a hundred, I guess," she said. "And a medic can fake anything."

Kakashi paused, before rummaging around his pockets again for more money.

"I suppose she could be bunking off so hard she managed to make herself actually sick," Ino mused aloud. "She seemed perky enough when I last spoke to her. She only seems to get really sick when a team mission comes up."

"Yeah, well, there's not much I can do," Kakashi sighed.

The photocopier jumped to life, spitting out several sheets in the tray beside them. As Ino leant down to eagerly watch its progress, Kakashi tried to wrap his head around what Ino had just told him.

"In your medical opinion," he said slowly. "What would you say is wrong with her?"

"Exactly what I said. Bunk-itus," Ino tinkled cheerfully. "It's probably not that she's too sick for missions; she's just sick of missions with you guys. So which one of you pissed her off? I'm betting Naruto, but maybe Sai finally called her 'ugly' one too many times. Or maybe…" Ino slanted him a suggestive look. "Maybe you've done something."

He met her gaze unflinchingly.

"Or maybe not," she rallied. "Then again, she has loan sharks banging on her door every day of the week. She's never been good under too much pressure, so I wouldn't be surprised if her hair starts falling out soon."

"You're a good friend to her, Ino," Kakashi said drolly.

"Yes, I know. And I'll take your mission," she said, collecting the pile of newly printed sheets. "When is it?"

"Tomorrow morning. We assemble by the gates," he told her.

"Can do!" She gave him a salute and moved past him.

"Wait," he called, lifting the top of the photocopier to retrieve the original sheet. "Don't forget your… what is this anyway?"

It seemed like a medical thing, with lots of chemical names, a large chart and a printed name at the top. "Hyuuga Hinata," he read off it. "Are you supposed to making photocopies of confidential test results?"

Ino turned to give another playful look. "No… but I think everyone has a right to the happy news that our little shy Hyuuga heir is expecting."

He blinked. "A pregnancy test?"

"Mm-hm!"

"Ino, you are a diabolically vindictive harpy."

Her smile widened as if this was a pick-up line.

"But I'm afraid you've been duped."

Ino's smile dropped dramatically. "Huh?"

"I happen to know for a fact that everyone in the main branch of the Hyuuga family has A type blood," he said pointing to the test results. "This person is O type. It's not Hinata."

Ino looked at her own copies, flabbergasted. "But… that's not possible. These are Hinata's results."

"Nope," he said, perfectly happy to have spoilt her fun.

"You don't know anyone with O type blood, do you?" she asked, looking at him hopefully.

"Apart from myself?"

"You're not pregnant, are you?"

"Someone recently said that the earth and the sun would collide before I have children, so it's unlikely," he teased. "And the only other person I know who has O type is…"

"Is?" Ino begged.

"Anko. I think… I gave her blood once." He shrugged.

Ino pulled a face. "Anko? That's not nearly as scandalous as Hinata."

"That's all I know. And if you put Anko's name on these, she will make you extremely sorry, whether they're hers or not."

He left Ino to consider her photocopies sullenly. The crisp, bright morning outside the library was beginning to age a little, and for a moment he lingered in the street, torn about what to do next. He needed to drop by Naruto and Sai and remind them that the mission was back on for tomorrow, but he was only three blocks away from Sakura's house and some part of him told him to go see her. Another part of him warned that doing so would be supremely awkward for both of them, yet the first part prodded again that this was only what a decent team leader would do when their subordinate was sick and she had specifically _asked_ for him. He also had half a mind that someone needed to persuade her to give up her mother's house and find a smaller, most cost-effective apartment.

He was still trying to decide what to do when a small brown bird flitted down to land on the fence beside him. It chirped boldly at him three times exactly, ending with an ascending warble before flipping its wings and disappearing back into the sky.

Kakashi sighed and looked towards the Hokage-tower looming over the rooftops some distance away. All thoughts of visiting any of his teammates would have to be put aside.

Ino plodded down the library steps behind him, shooting him a curious glanced. "You still here?" she remarked.

"Forget the mission," Kakashi told her. "Something just came up."

* * *

Three blocks away, Sakura was completely unaware with the near-miss of Kakashi's intended visit. She was too busy sobbing uncontrollably before her fish tank in the kitchen.

In the murky green water of the tank which hadn't been cleaned for several months, swam a shoal of small, scarlet guppies. Floating at the top were three little red corpses. Sakura snurched and sniffled and tried to get control of herself, knowing that she'd lost fish before and it was only a case of mild disappointment, not a crying tragedy. But now it seemed like a message from the universe: _If Haruno Sakura can't keep a fish alive, what hope does she have as a mother?_

Finally she fought down the sobs until they were just soft, sporadic hiccups and miserably went about disposing of the bodies. She thought about flushing them down the toilet, but that seemed too cruel, and so she went and buried them in the garden beneath a maple tree instead. After a moment's silence in honour, she returned limply to her breakfast and went back to running through the endless scenarios in her head of how to approach Kakashi. While she thought, she mindlessly crunched on her dry cereal. Milk was too much for her stomach at this time in the morning.

It needed to be done today, or so she had decided. Now that she'd arranged for him to come round later, she had effectively robbed herself of the opportunity to put it off any longer. This was all for the best, but now she was sincerely wishing she'd left it until tomorrow. She knew if she had her way she would put it off again, and again, and again, until the baby was born and it was thirty years old.

She had to do it now before her courage failed her again as it had two nights ago. But how would he react? Who else would she have to tell? What if other people found out? How would people look at her? What would people _think_ of her, knowing that she'd been knocked up by her superior after an ill-advised meltdown?

Nausea rose in her stomach again, though it was hard to say if that was the pregnancy or her own fear. She looked sideways at her reflection in the mirror beside the fridge and grunted dismally. _So much for glowing_, she thought. She looked as pale and wan as a ghost.

But her eyes were like her mothers, and for a moment Sakura met her own gaze and saw someone else. Forcibly she blinked and shrugged her shoulders to dispel the image. Her mother had been the epitome of everything a mother should be. Her hair had been soft, and slightly curled in a bob around her ears. She'd always smelt nice and clean and when Sakura had hugged her, she was gentle and warm and her heartbeat had been the most familiar, reassuring sound in the world. She'd always smiled, even when she was dying. And she'd always been busy, holding together a house and a job by herself without showing even the smallest indication that she struggled with the money.

Sakura felt appallingly incomplete by comparison. She was thin and not at all soft, and her hair hung in straight lanks around her face, in dire need of a wash. She didn't smell of soaps or perfume. She hadn't washed properly since that dreadful, pointless trip yesterday. She could still taste vomit in her mouth from her sick spell that morning, and in her old pyjamas she made for a shoddy appearance.

_I can't be a mother_. It was impossible. For a start, no child would want this for a mother.

And there was the unavoidable fact that she was alone.

The kitchen clock on the wall behind her ticked away inexorably. Sakura had run out of thoughts. She simply sat into space and stared and dimly heard the sounds of birds in the garden and the bubbling of the fish tank's pump. There was nothing in this house. No one to live for. No one to support her.

Sakura wiped another stray tear from her cheek and sighed. For the umpteenth time she turned back to mirror and started over again.

"Sensei," she said to her reflection. "I'm pregnant."

But it didn't sound right. No matter how many times she said it, it sounded too blunt and dramatic.

"Sensei, you know that mission to Jonan…?" No, that was too much of a lead in. "Sensei, you know that time I kissed you?" Still too much of a lead in. "Hey, sensei, you remember that night we did it on the floor of the hotel room? Well… I have an update."

She didn't want to smack him over the head with the news, but she didn't want over-talk it either. Another sigh escaped her lips as she looked back at the clock. One o'clock. Kakashi said he would drop by before lunch, and though she told herself she shouldn't be surprised that he was late, she also felt marginally bitter that he'd try to stand her up _now_ of all times.

If he wasn't going to come to her, she'd have to go to him. Now. She had to do it now before she talked herself out of it again.

Once washed and dressed, she kicked aside another red warning notice from her doormat and left the house. Finding Kakashi would be easier said than done, but she had known him well for the last few years, and she knew all his favourite haunts.

The cenotaph was unattended, and he wasn't in the cemetery either. Sakura did spot Kurenai with her small daughter visiting her husband's grave, but she claimed not to have seen Kakashi since early morning when he'd asked her where Ino was, and that meant he could be anywhere. As Sakura turned to leave, she looked at Asuma's grave in consternation. A lot of men did that; had the audacity to up and die and leave behind a young family. That was part of the inevitability of a deadly profession.

Sakura didn't know what she'd do if she was put in Kurenai's shoes. Her little girl was a renowned handful after all. She made Naruto at the same age look like an angel.

Further into town she saw TenTen and her genin team doing hand stands in the training grounds. Sakura asked them if they'd seen Kakashi. Two of the children promptly fell over and TenTen turned on her hands to regard Sakura upside down. "Not since yesterday. Sorry."

Hinata was outside the academy with her father, but they seemed to be engaged in such a furious argument that Sakura didn't have the nerve to approach them. As she slipped past, all she could make out was Hinata tearfully insisting to her father that 'it wasn't true' and she 'didn't even have a boyfriend' while he waved a piece of paper angrily at her.

Naruto and Sai were nowhere to be found, despite it being lunch time at the ramen store. Nor could she see Kakashi hanging out at the top of Hokage monument where he sometimes liked to read or train or eat his own lunch in privacy.

She stopped by his apartment, but it was locked up and silent inside. With no where else to go, she headed for the Hokage tower.

Ino was coming down the steps as Sakura arrived, looking hassled and annoyed. "If you're so sick," she began, "how come you're up and about?"

"I'm fine," Sakura said tritely. "I'm just looking for Kakashi-sensei."

"Don't waste your time," Ino told her. "He was sent on an emergency mission this morning."

"What?" Sakura breathed. "Wait, what emergency? How long will he be gone?"

Ino swept past her with a shrug. "How should I know? Ask the Hokage."

Sakura hurried into the building and up the stairs with a restrained kind of panic. She found Tsunade in her private library, consulting a map with the two elders. All three looked up in mild aggravation as Sakura entered without knocking, and immediately Sakura realised her zealousness might come across as a little suspicious.

"Sorry," she said quickly. "Uh… I was just looking for Kakashi-sensei."

"He's not here," Tsunade said bluntly. "He's on a mission."

"What mission?"

The hokage glanced at the elders briefly before fixing a light, apologetic smile on Sakura. "I'm sorry. It's confidential, Sakura. With so many spies around one can never be too careful."

It wasn't like Tsunade to stick so tightly to procedure, but with the elders present she wasn't going to flaunt the rules of confidentiality.

"Well, how long is he going to be away?"

"Possibly a few days. Most likely a few weeks." Tsunade narrowed her eyes quizzically. "Why? Is there something you need?"

Nothing that Sakura would admit to. Not even to her shishou. "No," she said, shaking her head. "Sorry to disturb you."

Sakura wandered back down the stairs, not certain of what she should do next. With Kakashi on a mission, there was virtually no way of contacting him, and he hadn't even bothered to say goodbye, even though he'd _known_ she wanted to speak to him. Non-emergency communications at times like this were not permissible, and Sakura didn't think begging a man to come home because she needed to tell him something counted as an emergency. For all she knew, the mission was important. She couldn't drag him away over such a 'trifling' matter.

The hospital was down the road. All she needed to do was go down there and make an appointment… terminate the problem before it became a problem, and no one would have to be any the wiser.

But was that fair to Kakashi? Or even to herself? She was so desperately uncertain of what to do that she needed support and another opinion, even if there was a possibility he would just brush her off and tell her to do whatever she wanted.

With a half sigh, Sakura shook her head and began making her way into town.

She needed to buy new guppies anyway.

* * *

Next Chapter: _In Displacement_


	9. In Displacement

_A/N: Just to clarify, if you're slightly confused as to what happened between Sakura, Kakashi and Sasuke, that's normal. It will eventually be fully elaborated, but for now enjoy the little clues. :D_

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Eight: In Displacement

* * *

_I got my ticket and I got a straight road_

_But I'm passing the same signs_

_Over and over_

* * *

Shizune glanced up from her paperwork and regarded the girl on the opposite desk with a sigh. Sakura had fallen asleep again, and not even discreetly. Her head was in her arms, she was snoring faintly, and she hadn't moved in three minutes. Fortunately Tsunade was still too busy conversing with her military strategists in the war room upstairs to have noticed, but if she could return at any moment and if she caught Sakura taking _another_ nap, there would be hell to pay.

Quietly, she folded a less important document into a small paper airplane and carefully took aim. Shizune could fly a needle through the tiniest gap in two plates of armour at a distance of a hundred yards. When she released the plane, it flew swift and true and bounced off Sakura's head.

The girl sprang upright, probably not entirely sure where she was.

"The fish…!" she fretted.

"The fish?" Shizune whispered back.

"The fish wouldn't stop crying." Sakura rubbed her fingers over her eyes and took better stock of where she was and how much work she still had left to sort through. "What time is it?"

"Three."

Sakura's face crumpled. "Why can't it be five?"

"Because time doesn't bend for anyone, least of all you," Shizune replied primly. "Why don't you just take some sick days? You need to relax, Sakura."

"I can't do that," she replied, shuffling through her papers with a perplexed frown.

"Why not?"

"Because then I'd be off for the rest of the year," she said, and finished with a jaw-popping yawn.

Shizune was about to question that remark, but Tsunade chose that moment to request her presence. "Shizune! Get over here! Now!" her voice shouted down the hall.

You didn't dare disobey a tone like that. Shizune rolled her eyes before rising to her feet and crossing the room. From the looks of Sakura as she passed the girl's desk, she was on the verge of taking another nap, but Shizune decided against poking her. It never worked for long anyway, and she looked as though she needed a good snooze.

Yet before she joined Tsunade in the next room, she paused by Sakura's chair to lean over her. "Sakura, if there's anything you need… or if there's anyone you need to talk to… please don't hesitate, ok?"

Sakura stared flatly ahead. "I know."

That was the most you could ever get out of her. As long as Sakura refused to admit to what was bothering her, there was no real way to help. Shizune could only pat her on the back and hope that she eventually realised she didn't have to shoulder everything alone…

* * *

Seven weeks.

Sakura counted the days on the office calendar, and then counted them twice more just to be certain.

Eight weeks since her last period. Seven weeks since that mission to Jonan. One week since Kakashi had disappeared on another assignment, and since then had not been seen or heard from by anyone.

Unconsciously, her hand shifted to her belly. There was no real outward sign yet; the only part of her that had really gotten any bigger were her breasts. Under normal circumstances this would be delightful, but the reason for her increase in cup size was a source of constant dread. Not only that, but her breasts ached and chafed and nothing seemed to fit comfortably anymore. Ino kept accusing her of using socks and had even grabbed them once or twice to try and judge if they were fake.

Several times Sakura had thought about telling her the truth, about telling _someone _the truth, but always she knew that the only person she wanted to tell was Kakashi. It was their problem, after all. No one else's.

The only trouble was, she had no idea where he'd gone. She'd tried asking Tsunade a few times in the past week, but her hassled Hokage only grew impatient with the question. "Why?" she had demanded. "What is so important that you need to speak to Kakashi?"

So Sakura had stopped asking. It was generally understood with emergency missions like this that no news was good news. (Or appalling bad news, but she didn't want to think about that.) Instead she knew she would have to bide her time patiently for his return. However, with every passing week the problem literally grew and grew, and without any indication of when Kakashi would be returning, Sakura was at a complete loss of what to do.

For all she knew, Kakashi was lying dead in a forest somewhere, possibly crawling with ants and being picked at by birds and wild pigs.

Sakura shuddered. She'd never really been concerned for Kakashi's safety before, because she certainly couldn't doubt his ability. She could only guess that perceptions and fears shifted a touch when someone became the father of your child.

Except it wasn't a child. Sakura refused to think of it as such. It was nothing. It was just an 'it', and perhaps not even that. All she had was a conglomeration of fear and terror and it was about to ruin her whole life, and perhaps if it hadn't been for the fact that everyone in the hospital knew exactly who she was, she'd be down making an appointment to end the 'problem' once and for all. Fear and shame of being recognised led to mute inaction. She could hardly stand to think about it, yet she could think of nothing else.

Five o'clock finally inched around and Sakura gratefully gathered her belongings to head home. She needed a proper sleep, then later she'd go out and have ramen. She really fancied ramen. In fact, right then in the universe, she could think of nothing tastier than ramen – hot and chicken-flavoured with some crunchy vegetables and soft, wobbly noodles mixed in the broth.

And hopefully tonight would be the night Kakashi returned home. He always went straight to his apartment when returning from a mission, so she'd casually swing by his place on her way back and see if any life stirred inside.

If it turned out he was back, she would find him and tell him the whole truth without hesitation, as she had rehearsed it all week. Of course, she might omit the part where she'd known before he left… he might find that irksome. For all he had to know, she'd only found out during his absence so she couldn't be accused of keeping secrets from him.

At the end of a long walk home from the tower, she was looking forward to the warmth of her house. The weather was turning cooler and soon she would start needing a thicker coat and probably a scarf and gloves too. Winter would be here soon. And if she did nothing, a baby would be born in spring.

She didn't find the prospect exciting, so her mood was already dour when she turned into her gateway. It took a further nose dive when she realised that there were people at her door, _picking_ her lock.

"Hey!" Sakura yelped, storming forward. "Who do you think you are?! This is _my_ house!"

"I'm afraid this is no longer true, Miss Haruno. Didn't you receive the notices from your mortgage lenders?" said the man in the grey suit who seemed to be overseeing the proceedings.

Sakura shifted and folded her arms, thinking of all the red notices that had been littering her doormat. "Sure. But I don't see what that has to do with you trying to break into my house!"

"You have been given numerous warnings, Miss Haruno," he countered. "You were warned that if you failed to keep up the payments or offer an alternative payment plan or if your failed to appear before the court, your control of your property would be handed over to a representative of the court. At this time, you must now hand over your keys and vacate the property with whatever belongings you wish."

Sakura stared at him. "You can't take this house. It's _my_ house. It's my mother's house! It's been in the family since Konoha was founded! It's ours out and out!"

"Until the previous Mrs Haruno re-mortgaged. I'm sorry, but unless you have a way of paying off the asked amount right now, we have to repossess this house."

"Over my dead body," Sakura snapped.

"We _will _call the police in if we have to, Miss."

Well, that tore it. She already had a record so she couldn't risk another blemish. But her house…!

Sakura looked towards her humble abode and her heart broke. She'd lived in this house for as long as she could remember, and she had taken it for granted that, like her mother, she would live in it with her own family until the day she died. Now these horrible men in their boring little suits had the nerve to stand there and tell her it _wasn't_ going to happen. The grey suit in particular was a smarmy-faced bastard if ever there was one, and Sakura regarded his outstretched hand with huge disgust.

"The keys, Miss."

"No," Sakura ground out.

"Miss, be reasonable."

Was there a choice? She could resist and kick up a fuss and then they'd call the police and she'd be left humiliated on her own street. Already she could feel the nosy, prying eyes of her neighbours peering out from behind their curtains. Her keys jangled in her pouch, growing hot in her hands.

It felt like someone else took control of her limbs as she slowly passed the keys over and watched them disappear into his own pocket.

That was that. She was homeless. She only half-listened to the man's further explanations that the house would be auctioned off. Whatever it sold for, the money would first go to pay off the debts. If there was any left over, Sakura could have it, but if the house didn't sell for enough, she would _still_ owe money.

And the man also rather graciously added that Sakura could take whatever furnishings she liked, but she felt that was a bit rich. With no home and no money, what the hell did he expect her to do with it all? If he was going to take her house, he might as well take everything in it.

At the end of the day, all Sakura could walk away with was a suitcase full of clothes and whatever equipment and books she could fit in a backpack. She dragged them down the street with a purposeful stride and a determined expression fixed on her face.

But she had no idea where she was going.

* * *

"Damn, that's harsh."

"I can't believe they can just throw someone out their own home like that!"

"You should tell the Hokage, Sakura-chan."

"What could the Hokage do? Sakura may have her completely buttered up, but not even she can protest against legal proceedings like this."

"She can lend her money though."

"She doesn't _have_ any money herself!"

"Naruto has money. Buckets of it."

"You wouldn't think, considering he still lives in that box."

"I like my box…"

"Yeah, but that's only because he doesn't know how to spend it. I'm sure he'd lend some to Sakura if she needed it. Wouldn't you, Naruto?"

"I kinda already donated it to charity…"

"Get it back! Sakura's the biggest charity case in Konoha!"

Sakura, only half-listening to the conversation moving back and forth around her, suddenly put her foot down. "I don't want hand outs." Especially if there weren't any available.

Beside her chair sat her suitcase and her backpack of valuables. Between them and the orange juice in her hand, this felt like all she had left in the world. That and the concern of her friends. And the thing growing inside her. But the less said about the latter the better.

While her friends resumed bickering about what to do with her, Sakura turned her head and gazed over the balcony to watch the river glide slowly past. She'd all but given up caring. The tea room was busy, and the sounds of the argument seemed to merge into one constant hum around her, because there was only one voice she wanted to hear, and it didn't belong to anyone present. In a situation like this where she suddenly found herself not only homeless but seven weeks pregnant to boot, the only person she could think to turn to right now was Kakashi. She knew that if she told him she was homeless, he would just shrug and tell her there were worse things, and he would make her believe it. And if she told him some prat had gotten her pregnant, he would offer to beat up said prat, free of charge. He was such a reliable, stable person, that he was just the friend she needed right now.

He was also the one friend she no longer had.

"…the gambling debts got to my uncle, so exactly the same thing happened to him. He had to stay with us for a while, but he got back on his feet eventually after a year or two," Tenten finished.

"See, Sakura?" Naruto prompted. "Things will get better."

But when? If ever there was a time that Sakura _needed_ a secure roof over her head and a stable income, it was now. And though perhaps two weeks ago, nothing had terrified her more than the prospect of losing her mother's house, frankly that was overshadowed by the new revelation that she was facing homeless motherhood.

A new wave of nausea suddenly took hold of Sakura. The aroma of coffee and burnt, sugary drinks was too uncomfortable to tolerate any longer, and with a hastily muttered excuse, she left the table and slipped away down the balcony steps to where the air was fresher. There she sat on the river's grassy verge and hugged her knees, taking deep breathes to try and overcome the sickness. She wasn't comforted in the least by the irritating voice in the back of her head that reminded her this kind of thing would be dogging her for weeks and months to come.

Footsteps on the grass made Sakura turn her head to see Ino. The blonde girl picked her way down the slope to crouch down beside her, and there she began plucking dandelion clocks. "We've decided," she announced, and from the way she spoke it was clear that no one believed Sakura capable of making her own decisions. "I'm going on a mission tomorrow and I'll be gone for the best part of the year, probably. Someone needs to look after my house, and since you need somewhere to stay…" She let the implication dangle.

"You trust me with it?" Sakura asked flatly.

"You only have to look after yourself and keep the place clean. Dad pays for everything anyway, so you won't be out of pocket. It's not rocket science, Sakura," Ino said dismissively. She blew hard on the dandelion and watched the seeds whirl away across the water. "That'll be best though, don't you think?"

"I guess." Sakura knew she was right, but she couldn't summon enthusiasm or gratitude. She was too busy grieving. Her house was gone. Kakashi was gone. Her future as she'd planned it was teetering on the edge of going the same way if she didn't act soon. Yet she couldn't face the decision. She didn't want to face anything.

Sakura momentarily buried her head in her arms and Ino rubbed her back. "Cheer up. In a couple of years, you'll be rolling in money and you'll probably be able to buy your house back and it'll be like it was never gone. You knew this was going to happen anyway."

"I know death is going to happen too, but I won't be enjoying that when it arrives either," Sakura grumbled. "And why are you going away for a year? I don't want you to."

"My mission, remember?" Ino shrugged. "It should hopefully be around six months though, but it's not like I'm looking forward to it. Most of that time will probably be spent twiddling my thumbs doing nothing, but I guess _someone_ has to do it, and only a kunoichi can play housemaid."

"You're going to be a housemaid," Sakura repeated flatly.

"For the next six months, yep. And I'm _useless_ at cleaning up and being subservient. I _told_ Tsunade-sama that a meek little mouse like Hinata would be more convincing as a servant, but oh no. 'Hinata's busy, Sakura's busy, everyone's busy but you Ino, so you'll have to go to the Rain country and bore yourself to death with old-world house politics.' I wanted to scream."

Sakura's thoughts ticked over slowly. "So… you'll be gone for the next six months," she began.

Ino sighed impatiently. "If I'm lucky."

"So… more like… seven or eight months, maybe?"

"Probably."

"And it's in the Rain country, isn't it?"

"Horrible weather there. Rains every day, can you believe it?" Ino glowered. "My hair will be permanently ruined."

"That's very far away from Konoha," Sakura mused.

"Especially since resources are too stretched that I won't even have back-up. I'll be alone out there. Awful!"

"Terrible," Sakura agreed distantly. Then with a slight nod she reached a decision and looked Ino square in the eye. "I'll do it."

"You'll do what?" Ino asked, nonplussed.

"Your mission. I'll take your mission."

For a very good reason, Ino's eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion. Sakura knew her well enough to know exactly what she was thinking. Besides the fact that Ino was naturally a very suspicious sort of person, she was also aware that Sakura had been skipping a lot of missions due to her mysterious sickness. To suddenly jump at the opportunity to take on a tedious long-term mission far from home was quite a turnaround. So she said, quite obtusely, "Why?"

"I don't want to impose on your hospitality," Sakura started.

"You don't normally have such reservations-"

"For the odd meal or use of your shower, sure, but I can't in good conscience squat in your house for most of the year. So why don't I just take your mission? You get to stay here, and I get free food and accommodation. Everyone wins."

"But when you come home, you'll be in exactly the same position you are now! Whereas, if you stay you can take better paying missions so that by the time I need my place back, you can afford your own."

"Fine," Sakura shrugged. "Take the mission. See if I care."

"W-Wait, I don't want the damn mission! I'm just trying to understand why _you_ could possibly want it."

Sakura shook her head uncertainly and began plucking blades of grass and shredding the between her nails. "I just want to get out of Konoha for a while. I don't feel like I belong here anymore. There's so many bad feelings associated with this place right now…"

"Gah, Sakura! That's just because you're depressed about your house-"

"No, it's more than that. I need to leave for a while. It's the only choice that feels right."

Ino rolled her eyes and looked as if she wanted to protest, but clearly not that much as she kept her mouth shut. Her desire to foist off her crappy mission onto someone else greatly outweighed her exasperation with her friend. "Alright then. If you're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"We'll have to go see Tsunade and make the arrangements."

* * *

The Hokage's private library was even messier than usual that day. This was probably because the Hokage herself was in there, throwing scrolls at a handful of assistants including Shizune and yelling instructions. "The Iwa village plans have to be here somewhere! The old man kept records of _everything_ in here!"

"But we haven't slept in twenty hours, Hokage-sama. I can't remember what my children look like…"

"Suck it up, Sato! This is important." Tsunade turned and came to a stop when she spotted Ino and Sakura hesitating by the door. "What do you two trouble-makers want now?"

Ino visibly shrunk behind Sakura and gave the girl a hard shove forward with her elbow. She was the Hokage's apprentice after all and had more experience dealing with the older woman in her variety of extreme moods. So Sakura cleared her throat and stepped forward cautiously. "Tsunade-shishou, we were wondering if it would be ok to swap missions. Ino's due to the Rain country tomorrow, so would it be possible for me to go in her place?"

"No," Tsunade said abruptly. "Next question?"

"But… Ino doesn't want this mission, and I do, so wouldn't it be better if I just-"

"Do you want to know the reason Ino specifically is on this mission, Sakura?" Tsunade interrupted.

"I don't," Ino said darkly, knowing what was coming.

"It's very likely in the coming weeks that fighting will break out. There will be skirmishes on the border and then there will be battles. Ino is one of our weakest close-range fighters, so I'm placing her out of the way in a position where her much more excellent infiltration skills will be of use. You, on the other hand, have all the subtlety of an angry rhinoceros, Sakura, but you _are _one of our best fighters. It is utterly nonsensical to send Ino into battle and you off to infiltrate enemy household."

"I can do subtle! And I don't see the sense in sending someone so faraway without backup when they have weak combat skills. If things go bad, she'd need to be able to defend herself." Sakura protested. "And it's not as if infiltration skills aren't needed in battle, and her team is one of the best defences we have, but not if you break them up. So it's only right that I go to the Rain country and Ino stays here with her team."

"You're not a coward, are you, Sakura?"

"No, Tsunade-shishou!" Sakura cried, appalled.

"Because that's the only reason I can think of why you're so eager to take a quiet mission like this at a time of war."

Sakura hesitated, shooting a glance at Ino beside her and then at Shizune across the room who was pretending to be too busy sorting through maps to listen in. She could give her real reason right now, which was that she was a homeless pregnant girl who would soon be unable to help fight in skirmishes whether she liked it or not. Even mild infiltration like Ino's mission would be pushing her limitations eventually.

But if she opened her mouth and explained this, she knew that her life really would be over. Tsunade would never send a pregnant kunoichi on a mission, no matter how much of a walk in the park such a mission might be. Soon everyone would know her condition, and she'd be subjected to pity and then some scorn for being yet another kunoichi who fell victim to her own reproductive organs. The speculation about the father would begin immediately, and then Kakashi would return, if he returned, and then he would know that everyone knew before him. Any chance of just keeping this mistake between them would have been lost long ago.

This was no one's business but her own, she decided. She and Kakashi had almost literally made their own bed they would now have to sleep in. Involving others would just lead to unnecessary complications.

"Please, shishou," she said earnestly. "My debt caught up with me… I just need some time away from Konoha."

Tsunade's head tipped slightly to one side as she regarded Sakura with an inscrutable expression. The Hokage was no stranger to debt and the methods with which to avoid it. Sakura knew she was trying to decide, as a woman who had done her fair share of running away from trouble, if it was hypocritical to deny her student the same.

"We're at war, Sakura," Tsunade sighed. "I can't let you go."

"This mission could be vital to the war effort," said Sakura pleadingly. "Someone needs to do it, so why can't it be me? At least I _want_ to do it. Ino's so reluctant she probably wouldn't give it her all anyway."

Ino gave her an annoyed glare, and Tsunade looked between them one last time. "Will you keep bothering me about this if I say 'no' again?"

"Yes," the girls chorused.

With a final sigh and a shake of her head. "I suppose I have little choice then. Sakura, you may go on this mission. Ino, you're authorised to prep her."

"Yes, Hokage-sama!" Ino chirped happily, giving her a salute.

"Thank you, shishou," Sakura said, with a much deeper gratitude, and they both hurriedly excused themselves from the Hokage's presence before she could even think about changing her mind.

"This is brilliant!" Ino crowed as they headed back to her apartment. "We may need to adjust some kimonos, but you'll be set by tomorrow! I feel like Christmas just came early."

Sakura smiled at her friend's relief and enthusiasm, and though she didn't share it completely, she suddenly felt a lot more optimistic about her immediate future. Without the need to stick around Konoha, it felt like an enormous burden had been lifted from her soul. She now had ample time to herself to decide what to do without her friends and peers and superiors there to watch her. She would be with strangers who, while probably being the enemy, wouldn't know her or care about her situation.

Although first things were first and Ino immediately took her home to start filling in Sakura on the mission details while simultaneously resizing the clothing she'd been given for the mission.

"The house belongs to the Zuru family," she explained as she unceremoniously began stripping Sakura and wrapping her in a pale blue yukata. "They're an extremely well off family south of Amegakure. Profited enormously from both civil wars. They're almost certainly funding the crime syndicate, so you just need to keep your eyes and ears out for any information. If they're up to no good, they won't trust you to do anything where you'd be in a position to overhear or find out their intimate dealings, so it could be weeks or months before you should even attempt anything because they'll be watching you like hawks. All you have to do is fit into the household staff and gain their trust. They've already accepted my application. I said my name was Sakura… so sorry about that. You'll have to use your real name."

"It's ok," Sakura said in bemusement, because right then Ino was once again pawing her breasts under the pretence of fitting the dress around them, only really she was trying to suss out where Sakura was hiding the tissue paper.

"I say it's a house, but it's an estate really," Ino went on. "It's pretty isolated but a lot of people work there, so that'll both give you some cover _and_ you'll have to watch your back. You do have some spying type jutsu, don't you?"

"Of course." Actually, she didn't. However, she just needed to be inventive with a few of her existing jutsu and perhaps handy with an old fashioned electronic bug or two. If there was a will, there was a way. Even if it just meant sneaking up close and pressing an ear to the door.

"There won't be any back-up," Ino said regretfully. "So take an emergency radio with you. If things go bad, radio in for help and you'll maybe get it in three or four days."

"Brilliant."

"Send status reports every three weeks. We don't know if they filter the servants' mail yet, so you may have to get inventive in how you get a message to Konoha. Otherwise just be yourself and try to act naturally. And watch these tapes of old kunoichi spy films. You'll learn a lot!"

Ino's tapes turned out to be mostly about kunoichi who espionage'd via sex and were decidedly unhelpful when it came to the less exciting form of kunoichi espionage which involved serving tea and scrubbing floors. Nevertheless, Sakura curled up in front of the TV with Ino that night and sat through three of these romantic female spy films, cried through two of them, and then went to pack her things for her journey the next day. It would probably take the best part of the week to get to this Zuru estate if she paced herself and made sure not to overdo it like she had on the last mission with Team Kakashi. There would be no sleeping outdoors if she could help it, and whenever she could cadge a lift off someone else, she would do so without hesitation.

But there was still the problem of Kakashi.

Fortunately, when she woke up the next morning on Ino's sofa, the morning sickness was tolerable. After a decent breakfast she felt ready enough to take on the world and made her final preparations.

Wearing a suitably modest kimono and a back-breaking pack over her shoulder, she set off from Ino's. The first thing she did was find Naruto and Sai at the ramen stand and explain to them what was happening.

"Wait, you're leaving?" Naruto gaped at her, some noodle still on his cheek. "For _how _long?"

"Maybe six months, maybe more, maybe less," she said unhelpfully. "I don't know, but someone has to do."

And until yesterday, that someone had been Ino.

"But… on your own?" Naruto continued, aghast. "Won't you be lonely?"

She thought for a moment. "Perhaps, a bit. I'll miss you guys."

"Even me, Ugly-chan?" Sai sounded slightly surprised.

"No," she said swiftly.

"Would that be sarcasm? Kakashi-sempai has told me about that…" he mused.

"Anyway, you have to promise to look after each other while I'm gone. And… look after Kakashi-sensei too when he gets back."

"Who's going to look after you?" Naruto pointed out.

"It's a basic mission, Naruto, I'll be fine," she said dismissively. "You don't have to worry."

They weren't entirely reassured, though were slightly mollified when Sakura offered them hugs. She had to admit, the thought of not seeing them for so long brought a familiar sting of tears to her eyes – something that only upset and confused Naruto even more. But, she thought, the decision to leave was to protect them as much as herself. Hopefully now they would never have to know that their teammate had suffered a short, sordid affair with their superior and gotten pregnant by him. That knowledge would hurt Naruto and jeopardise the team's relationship, and this was her only chance at exercising some damage control.

Sakura left the ramen stand with a heavy heart, but there was still one last stop to make before heading out the village gates: Kakashi's apartment.

When she climbed the steps and pressed a hand against the door, it was as quiet and lifeless as ever. When she peeked into his mail box she was confronted with a mound of built up letters and bills and junk take away menus. Sakura looked at the small slip of folded paper in her hand and sighed. Her note deserved more than to be lost in a stack of unopened mail, so instead she carefully drew a kunai from her pocket and slipped the thin blade between the deadbolt and the doorframe and began jimmying.

Every lock-picker had their own style, and Sakura's was essentially of the 'brute force and ignorance' variety. Picking locks may not have been her forte, but the fact remained that an untrained chimp could break through this door, it was so old and loose and rotten with damp. But it wasn't likely that the issue of home security was all that important to Kakashi, not when there were probably very few people alive who had the balls the steal from a trained assassin. After just a little jiggling and praying, the kunai caught the bolt, sliding it back, and the door before her popped open.

The untrained chimp struck again.

Sakura pushed against the door, only to find the mountain of envelopes had all but blockaded her, leaving her with no option but to squeeze through whatever small gap the door would allow. Luckily she was only seven weeks pregnant, not seven months. Once in side, however, she was momentarily flummoxed.

She'd never actually been inside this apartment before, her only glimpses being under Kakashi's armpit when she occasionally dropped by to deliver a message or remind him he was late for something, and despite those brief peeps this was the first time she realised just how small it was. One room, in fact.

The other thing that struck her as odd was how… tidy it was. And it wasn't just tidy, it was almost entirely bereft of any sign of habitation. There was a bed, neatly made against one wall, a desk against another, upon which sat nothing but a pen. A small fridge hung around in the third corner and a heater occupied the fourth. A few personal touches hung about. A couple of photos on the windowsill along with a plant that was beginning to outgrow its pot. Five books were propped up on a shelf above the bed, and three of them were by Jiraiya.

It may as well have been a motel room for all the personality it held. There was nothing to suggest a man had lived the last twenty years of his life in here. Other than being a place to sleep, Sakura doubted Kakashi spent that much time here.

She looked around for a moment before deciding the best place to leave her note was on the desk. Satisfied she'd angled it just right to be most conspicuous, her job was done. This was the point where a more honest, pure-hearted girl would walk out and go on her way, but the fact that she was in the lion's den while the lion was away was a temptation too much to ignore. A little but of a nosey about was in order. Perhaps if he'd been someone else, he might have been spared, but when you were as distant and private as Kakashi, you were only to blame when girls came prying.

Absently she began to open some of the desk drawers. She found some paper, a couple of envelopes, a heap of unused pens… and at least three sealed packets of cigarettes. Sakura sighed and spirited them away into her backpack. She'd dispose of them later, and one day Kakashi would be thanking her for attempting to save him from this unhealthy developing addiction. If they ever got back on speaking terms again.

In another drawer she found a bound pile of letters. Did Kakashi have correspondence? She sometimes wrote to the odd friend who'd been stationed at a faraway outpost, but she hadn't figured Kakashi to be the kind of person who kept in touch with anyone. He was more the type who forgot you as soon as you left his sight; something she'd become more sure of since returning from Jonan.

Driven by curiosity, she thumbed through a few of the letters, skimming the words.

_Dear Kakashi, I hope this finds you well. Remember that money I leant you? When am I going to see it again?_

_Dear Kakashi, I know your handwriting, stop pretending to be your grieving sister. You don't have a sister and I know you're not dead. Where's my money?_

_Dear Kakashi, I do not accept this bracelet is worth the amount you owe. I'm pretty sure it's a plastic cable tie. Send money or else next letter will contain exploding tag. You may have your bracelet back._

_Dear Kakashi, Thank you, and same to you._

Looked like she wasn't the only one with money problems, Sakura thought as she blithely flicked past a doodle of what appeared to be a squirrel (it was a cat). There were some notes from what sounded like the landlord, one from an neighbour downstairs complaining about a leak, and one quite old one that looked to be from somebody's mother, threatening physical violence if Kakashi came anywhere near her daughter again. Beneath it was a letter from the daughter herself, one which Sakura was too embarrassed to read much of because it contained an awful lot of blunt entreaties for Kakashi to… lick certain parts of her anatomy. Ok. Who was she kidding? She read that one three times and debated taking it with her for posterity. If Kakashi had a mother, she was the one who should have been writing angry letters.

Sakura flipped through the rest of the stack, quickly growing bored now that it was apparent there weren't any more illicit love letters, until she came across one bearing the untidy scrawl of her very own commander. She knew his handwriting anywhere, and though the letter in her hand was complete, it was one he'd apparently never sent.

_Dear Karasu, your invitation is extremely gracious, and if the Hokage grants me leave, I will be sure to take you up on it. Give little Reika my regards. Hope you are in good health and that this letter reaches you safely. Sincerely, Kakashi. _

It was dated back during the last year of the third secret war, making this an _extremely_ old letter. Kakashi would have been about sixteen or seventeen at the time. Although what it meant that he'd never sent it or that there didn't appear to be any later letters from this person, Sakura didn't know. It just seemed a shame to her that the last time he seemed to have pleasant correspondence with anyone was seventeen years ago. Everything else was just veiled threats and sexual harassment.

Sakura carefully put the letters back in the exact order she'd found them and bent to open the last and biggest drawer in the desk. This one seemed to be cluttered with all sorts of rubbish, ranging from dog toys to scissors to several faded porno magazines.

Something else caught her eye too, and though for a moment she stared in confusion wondering what on earth it was, the moment she recognised it a lump rose in her throat. "My scarf…" she whispered, scooping it out of the drawer.

It wasn't actually her scarf; it was the one she had knitted for Kakashi all those winters ago – her very first attempt. As she held it out, one end of the yellow snake was distinctly wider than the other, and at the fat end was a hole large enough to fit _both_ her hands through. Despite how often she'd begged him to throw it away, he'd always hung onto it, wearing it dutifully every winter as if he didn't care that it had more holes than a piece of swiss cheese or that it was the most ghastly mustard colour ever witnessed.

Sakura folded it fondly in her hands and brought it to her nose. She could smell his aftershave – that sharp, tasty aroma that almost covered the one beneath it: the warm, musky, masculine one. For almost a minute she sat there, breathing into the wool and taking its scent into herself until she could no longer smell him. Should she bring it with her? Part of her wanted to, but she knew he'd notice. And right now she didn't wanted to be accused of sending mixed signals by stealing articles of his clothing away. She herself was mixed up enough as it was.

Sakura grudgingly returned the scarf to its sordid drawer, and for the least time positioned her note on the desk self-consciously. The note itself would tell him nothing about the pregnancy. Sakura felt rather strongly that to break such devastating news in such a way was too cowardly for her liking, and especially unsafe if someone else got in here before he returned. All it asked of him was to contact her, urgently, along with details of how to. Hopefully he wouldn't just dismiss and ignore her again. Hopefully he would catch the hint that something serious had happened.

And after that… god only knew what would happen. She supposed that whatever Kakashi wanted and the repercussions thereafter would be a bridge she would have to cross when she came to it.

As Sakura left the small apartment and made her way back through the streets, she was uncomfortably aware that her future was drastically unknown. Despite all the prepping Ino had given her, she knew very little about the place she was going to be living from now on, and even if it was just another job, it was a _new_ job too, unlike anything she'd ever had to do before. There would be new people and new rules and it would take her a while to settle. Would she even fit in?

A couple of months ago she never would have dreamed her life would take this course. She knew the odd story about girls who got pregnant and ran away to have the child in secrecy… but she'd never imagined she would one day be one of those girls. She'd never imagined the father would be none other than the Copy Ninja. In fact, for the longest time she had always believed whole-heartedly that the only father of her children would be Uchiha Sasuke. True, that belief had been waning in recent years, but she'd never entertained any other possibility.

After what had happened with Sasuke, however, she knew that dream was dead and buried. Right now it was too late to complain and ask in bewilderment why this had happened to her. All she could so was deal with the hand she'd been dealt. She told herself that it would work out in the end. It had to.

The painted green gates of the village were closed these days – it was a sign of shifting times when a village that had held its doors open to all for as long as she could remember now barred the outsiders out and locked the insiders in. She had to spend a few minutes at the checkpoint office window, showing her papers and the code for her mission scroll before they would haul open the doors to let her out. It shut with a terrific _thunk_ after she passed through, and that was when Sakura knew this was it. Konoha was behind her, and the only way was forward. She would leave here a pregnant girl, but when she returned next year she would wrest her life back. It wouldn't be the same – it wouldn't _ever_ be the same – but she would get through this, with or without _his_ help.

Sakura took her first step and didn't look back.

* * *

Next Chapter: _New Homes; Old Homes_


	10. New Homes Old Homes

_A/N: Sorry for the delay. Been trapped in London for a week. :X_

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Nine: New Homes; Old Homes

* * *

_Fill these spaces up with days,_

_In my room you can go, you can stay._

* * *

"Why don't you ever talk about where you're from, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura smiled faintly as she moved along the edge of the bed, patting down the soft linen sheet until there were no wrinkles left. On the other side, Kaoru walked along doing the same, only with the greater efficiency of a girl who changed beds more often than she changed her clothes.

"What would I talk about?" Sakura countered as she battled to fold the sheet down under one corner. "My life isn't very interesting."

"Yes, but usually people have _something_ to talk about," Kaoru persisted. "What about family?"

When it came to personal questions, it was often better to simply tell the truth to avoid creating complicated webs of lies she might forget and contradict later on. So she shrugged and said honestly, "Not really. My father died before I was born. I grew up with my mother, but she passed away a couple of years ago, so it's pretty much just me now."

Kaoru's typically pretty face fell. She was clearly sorry she'd asked. "Who did you live with after?"

"No one. I lived alone. And now I live here," Sakura shot her a bland smile. "I'm afraid that's about as interesting as I get."

"That can't be all! I bet you've had an exciting love affair or two!"

Hah. Love affairs. Not a topic Sakura ever liked being grilled about; originally because she had no love life… now because it was just a bit _too_ interesting. "I wish," Sakura sighed in a more or less convincing manner. "But no."

"No?" Kaoru echoed despairingly. "Surely there are _some_ boys. You're not _that _unattractive."

Sakura's hands paused against the mattress. Kaoru was a nice girl in many ways, as she had introduced herself to Sakura like they were simply best friends who hadn't seen each other for a week, but there were times when her lack of subtlety and her predilection for romantic drama invoked memories of Ino on her more conceited days. Sakura just smiled quietly and decided to throw the dog a bone. "Maybe. There was one boy. I loved him ever since I was little girl, so much so that I built my entire life around him in a manner of speaking."

"Ooh! Childhood sweethearts! What happened?"

"… he's gone now."

Kaoru paused. "That's so sad. Wasn't there anybody else?"

There was, but Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to go into details. It was still a remarkably sore subject to even think about. Yet at the same time she burned with a need to share the burden with someone else, if only a little bit, and who better to share with than another servant girl from the Rain country who didn't really know her or her circumstances?

"There was a man. He'd always been there, but I'd never really noticed him-"

"Was he good looking?"

"I - well, I suppose. Kind of, yes. But that wasn't important because he always wore a… well, his inner self was always more apparent than his outer self, I guess. He was my mentor for years, and then he became one of the best friends I'd ever had. And then we took the relationship one step too far, and then he told me he... When I left, we weren't really on speaking terms."

"How awful," Kaoru breathed. "What went wrong?"

"I don't know," Sakura said around the sudden lump in her throat. "We just weren't ready. I don't even remember much of what happened myself."

"Ah." The other girl nodded in immediate understanding. "Tell me about it. One time I had sake at Aki's birthday party, and the next morning I woke up naked about a mile away in the forest."

"Um…" Sakura stared at her new friend, trying to work out what she'd been told. "Did you mean to do that?"

"Nope. I still don't remember how that happened, but that's probably a blessing." Kaoru frowned in thought. "Though Yui was pretty mad with me the next day so it probably had something to do with the young lord. Oh no, Sakura – you don't fold it like that. Pick it up exactly ten inches from the mattress, Sakura-chan – now hold it parallel to the mattress and then tuck it down, then hold the other piece to a forty-five degree angle and tuck it down too so that it's even with the bottom of the bed."

Sakura dazedly complied. Kaoru had been repeating these instructions for most of the last hour. It would probably sink in eventually, though Sakura normally prided herself on being the fastest learner in Konoha, it was hard to work up any enthusiasm for the apparently very precise art of bed making. At least Kaoru was a patient teacher.

Sakura did her best to remember the exact instructions as she folded another corner of a freshly cleaned bed-sheet beneath its mattress. At the opposite corner, Kaoru watched her carefully since Sakura had a habit of falling back on the folding techniques she'd picked up from a mother who wouldn't know what a folding technique was if she slept on it, and that just wouldn't cut it in this place. Even in guestrooms that were never used, beds had to be made up as freshly and precisely as if they were being made for the lord of the estate himself. Therefore it was Kaoru's duty to doggedly retrain her of her slapdash ways.

Naturally, Sakura thought it was all nonsense. When you started saying things like 'forty-five degree angles' when talking about making a bed, you were beginning to take the job too seriously.

"But no one uses these guest rooms," Sakura said as she finished sliding the last flap of linen beneath the mattress. "No one will notice."

"The Zuru family has plenty of friends who like to drop by at a moment's notice, and a moment's notice _only if we're lucky_," Kaoru bubbled cheerfully. "And naturally, any friend of the boss family is going to be as picky and pretentious as _they _are, so we have to be vigilant."

A smile tugged Sakura's lips. "Could they really tell the difference between a toe pleat and mitered corner?"

"No, but Himiko sure can!"

"Would she be annoyed if I messed up?" Sakura asked anxiously, rechecking each corner of the bed to make sure there wasn't a crease or unsightly edge in sight. She didn't want to give anyone (least of all Himiko the housekeeper and head of staff) any reason however small to fire her in her first week.

Kaoru laughed. "Himiko's a sweetheart. I don't think I've ever really seen her annoyed at anyone in all my time here. She's a sterner teacher than me though, so if you don't get this right with my instruction, she'll haul your ass back up here herself later and make you do it twice as fast, and possibly with weights."

Sakura gave a relieved smile.

"Don't smile just yet, we still have thirteen more rooms to go."

Urgh. But Sakura was tired _now_. It was a problem she'd been noticing more often these days, and it was one that left her deeply unnerved. After all, she was a kunoichi who was used to rigorous hours of endless training that went on day after day; she wasn't supposed to be feeling fatigued after one morning of labour. There would be no slacking though. If she couldn't keep up with the work, she could very well be sent away no sooner had she arrived. Himiko might be prepared to forgive her a few things considering her condition, but her generosity probably wasn't unlimited.

"Come on," Kaoru beckoned her towards the open door, their job now done for this room.

But the moment the other girl took a step into the corridor outside she suddenly hastily backed up and grabbed Sakura's arm.

"What?" she murmured, but Kaoru held a finger sharply to Sakura's lips while herding her against the wall. There they stood stiffly and silently, and Sakura listened intently while Kaoru's cool digit remained pressed against mouth.

Footsteps. A man's. They were slow and leisurely as they approached, accompanied by the repeated jingle of metal like a belt or some other accessories. Kaoru's grip on Sakura's arm seemed to tighten as the footsteps grew louder and nearer. Was he coming in here? What was the big deal anyway?

Nevertheless, if Kaoru seemed to think it was urgent that they weren't noticed, Sakura knew it was safer to go along with it. There were still so many things about this place and the people living here that were unknown to her. Gradually the footsteps drew level with the door, and for a second Sakura thought they would continue past without incident.

Then they stopped.

Almost immediately Kaoru's demeanour changed and she dropped Sakura's arm to immediately begin attacking a pillow case, plumping it furiously as if they hadn't spent the last five minutes doing just that. Sakura knew what she was up to. She wanted to look like she was busy, not just hiding against a wall, for the man who entered the guestroom at that very moment.

"Kaoru-chan? I thought I heard a little mouse scurrying about in here."

The servant girl immediately dropped the pillow to form a low, respectful bow – one which Sakura echoed instinctively. Being the same rank as Kaoru, it was easier just to copy everything she did.

"Toshio-sama," she said in a low, quiet voice. "We're sorry if we disturbed you."

Sakura remained silent, quickly piecing together what was going on. From the way Kaoru was addressing the man, he was clearly one of the family she was here to serve and investigate. And despite his open, friendly sort of face and soft good looks, it couldn't have been more obvious to Sakura that there was no one Kaoru liked less.

When his gaze slid to Sakura to appraise her, his smile warmed. "Who is your new friend?"

She smiled back a little uncertainly. He spoke diminutively, and though it seemed friendly and pleasant on the surface she could sense the mocking behind his words. She didn't really know how to handle such men, certainly not when they were in a position of power above her where she had to watch her normally runaway tongue.

"This is the new girl," Kaoru said evenly. "Her name's Sakura. I'm mentoring her."

"Hm. Is she a good teacher, Sakura?"

"Yes, sir," she replied in the same tone as Kaoru. "She's very patient with me."

"I'm sure she has a lot to teach you," he said, his gaze wandered down her body in such a casual way she almost missed it when he looked immediately back to Kaoru. "I hate to interrupt your tutoring, Kaoru-chan, but my closet still needs organising today. Don't forget again."

Kaoru bowed – and Sakura copied – and by the time they straightened he was gone from the doorway and all they could hear was the fading taps of his footsteps and the jingling of his belt. Sakura looked at the other girl, trying to gauge what had just happened. "He… seemed nice," she said, testing the waters.

Kaoru shrugged, her face oddly blank. "You need to stay away from him," she said flatly. "Appearances can be deceiving, you know?"

It was quite a change from the bubbly girl she'd been a minute ago who revelled in prying into Sakura's love life. Now she seemed downright sulky. "Is everything alright?" Sakura asked.

"I have to go do his closet," Kaoru said heavily, forcing a smile that could have cracked a mirror. "Why don't you go take your break? I'll meet you back at the dorm at two, ok?"

"Ok," Sakura said anxiously, realising she was about to be abandoned to find her own way around this enormous labyrinth of a house. So far she had yet to go anywhere on her own without getting horrendously turned around in the process.

"Remember – if you get lost, just look for the doors with the painted dragons on them. They lead down to the undercroft."

The undercroft: the house beneath the house in which the servants did most of their unseen work. "Alright," Sakura sighed, wishing she could stay up here doing beds with Kaoru instead, not least of all because she didn't like the idea of the girl running errands for this 'Toshio-sama'. The name whirred around Sakura's mind, along with Kaoru's warning. Someone had already mentioned his name before, but what exactly had they said…?

As she waved goodbye to the other serving girl, she began picking her way down the corridors and stairs she'd memorised. The Zuru household was enormous – bigger than the Hokage tower and almost as big as the hospital for how many rooms and beds it held. The dorm where the servants slept was another building entirely, however, but one which could be reached through the underground passages.

If she could just remember the way…

By the time she found the dorm it would probably be two o'clock already and Kaoru would be waiting there, ready to drag her off for another round of 'duties'. In all her time as a kunoichi, Sakura doubted she'd ever worked this hard so consistently. Every day there was another endless list of chores to do; floors to sweep, windows to dust, flowers to change and arrange, and clothes to wash, dry, press, or hang.

She was certainly busy, but she noticed that so far her list of chores, as scribbled on the wall of the main corridor in the undercroft, seemed to be arranged so that she had the least contact with the resident family. During the evening meals, she was neither allowed to attend them in the dining room, nor allowed anywhere near the food preparation in the kitchens. It was clear that as a new member of the household she would have to earn their trust. Regardless, Sakura felt things were going to plan. After the first few days, she'd managed to adapt a passable rain country accent so as not to stick out too obviously as an outsider, and it seemed to have worked. Most of the staff, both in the house and the grounds, seemed to like her well enough. Himiko had more or less taken her under her wing and introduced her to everyone on the staff she needed to know.

It was through this that Sakura realised that getting close to the family was only half the job. The staff itself was an intricate hierarchy that needed to be played well in order to survive. Already with Himiko on her side she'd had a boost up the ladder. The head gardener whom she'd met on her first day was another ally she would need, as he had great influence over Lord Zuru's personal retainer, Himiko's male counterpart, who in turn pretty much presided over Lord Zuru's schedule – a schedule that Sakura would have to get close to if she was to learn anything about this family and its connections

Through one dragon-painted door she descended steps down from the guest wing of the main house into the cooler, darker recesses of the basement. There was always more life down here with members of the household and garden staff moving back and forth, always busy and so sure of where they were going. Sakura supposed a good little spy would be watching them closely to see who might know anything about the family's finances, but right now she was too tired, and there was still plenty of time for reconnaissance. For now, it was nap time.

She only got lost one on her way to the servants' dorm; a new record. But she was too tired to gloat. All she wanted to do was find her futon and snooze away the rest of the afternoon until Kaoru came to wake her.

One of the other girls had left the shoji doors of the room open that morning, so as Sakura lay recuperating, she gazed off into a forest of bamboo, listening to the soft whispers of wind and the pleasant trilling of birds she'd never heard back in the Fire country.

Two weeks she'd been in this estate, playing the part of just another household servant, and already Sakura was beginning to feel this was more her real life than the one back in Konoha. Although she missed her friends dearly, and at times even missed her work, she felt remarkably free these days. Her house was someone else's problem now. Her debt collectors couldn't reach her here. Even if she'd brought her biggest problem with her, the fear of her friends discovering her condition had been left behind.

Although…

Sakura sighed and closed her eyes, trying hard not to think about it. A faint, warm breeze dragged over her, carrying sweet scents that threatened to lull her to sleep. Perhaps she did drift off? If she did, it didn't seem that long after she closed her eyes that something cold and moist touched the back of her hand.

Sliding upright, Sakura fixed her fuzzy gaze on the ginger tabby cat sitting on the edge of her quilt.

"You look smug," she told it.

"That's just my face," the cat replied, flicking its tail.

Sakura stretched her arms above her head until her shoulders clicked and then gave an almighty yawn. "Have you heard anything, Dokko?"

"The two identical girls of the main family are planning to drop buckets of water on anyone who passes underneath their bedroom window. Mind that. The servant girl Aki with the long black hair is telling everyone you pick your nose, and the cook thinks I'm a god because I gave him a present."

"A present?"

"Three dead mice on the pantry floor. He gives me free fish now."

Sakura sighed. "I was hoping you'd have found out something about the crime syndicate by now?"

"Well," Dokko purred, "I've heard nothing from the lady of the house. She's afraid of anything with a fur coat so it's difficult to get near her. The young lord moves around too much, I can't risk following him, and the lord himself conducts his affairs behind closed doors, but I've heard a few things and he's certainly up to something. He's definitely organising funds to somewhere, and the fact that its so hush hush probably means its illegal. Or just some embarrassing relative. I can't be sure."

"Keep trying," Sakura told the animal. "They still won't let me anywhere near the family half the time."

"Maybe because you pick your nose?"

"I don't pick my nose."

"I'm taking the afternoon off anyway." Dokko crept forward onto Sakura's lap and promptly curled up. "Stroke me."

Sakura obliged and began to run her hand over the soft, luxurious coat of her summon. A profound, rattling purr filled the room and small, sharp claws flexed through the material of her yukata. Dokko liked nothing more than to be stroked and pampered. He was a little too open to distractions such as mousing and sucking up to the kitchen workers for free food, but of all her feline summons, his language skills were the best. He understood most of what he heard and could relay it accurately back to Sakura. And perhaps his laziness and tendency to makes friends with those holding a key to the pantry was a good cover. There were plenty of normal cats around here who appeared to be employed as mousers. Dokko fit right in. He could easily sidle up to people holding private conversations and learn all their secrets while innocently curled in their lap.

If he'd been a slug, he undoubtedly would have struggled to situate himself into people's hearts the same way, and her summoned animals very nearly would have been of the slimy variety if Tsunade had had her way. But on the day the Hokage had declared Sakura was ready to make a summoning pact with an animal clan and had offered Sakura her very own scrolls, Sakura had taken one long look at her shishou's beloved gastropods and thought that one could take this jutsu inheritance thing a little _too _far. In other words, she'd tactfully suggested she find her own animal summons better suited to her needs who were possibly more pleasurable to touch and look at.

Naruto had suggested frogs, Konohamaru had suggested monkeys, Lee had even suggested tortoises, and Kakashi had almost been very persuasive about the positive qualities of dogs. But in the end Sakura decided she wanted something more representative of herself - something sleek and quick and graceful and intelligent. Something like cats. She wasn't sure if anyone actually agreed that this represented her at all (Sai still thought she'd have been more suited to pink elephants ("Big ears, big noses, and fat. What more do you need?")) and to this day Kakashi was still alienated by her choice. He probably thought she'd been better off with slugs. He refused to acknowledge that cats were as practical as his own dogs, being that they were common animals with keen senses that could easily slip by unnoticed. Their hearing was magnificent and they could see in near pitch darkness. All in all, a perfect spy to compensate for her natural weakness in reconnaissance.

Dokko also had his other purposes.

"Have there been any messages?" she asked, scratching the base of his ears.

Dokko opened one eye. "Nothing," he rumbled.

Sakura's heart fell. "I was hoping…"

The cat shut his eye and said nothing more. Sakura continued tickling his neck as she gazed off into space, wondering if it was reasonable to be worried.

Two weeks ago she'd slipped that note onto Kakashi's desk. Surely he would have contacted her by now at the very least? Granted, her message had not been entirely explicit. She hadn't wanted to explain everything via a cowardly letter, so she'd simply left a request that he contact her via her summon as soon as possible over a matter of great importance. Had he read it and simply discarded it as being not important enough? Had he walked in with a big gust of wind and it had been blown under a bookcase where he would never find it? Or maybe he just hadn't returned yet? That would mean he'd been away for virtually a whole month on this emergency mission. Was that normal? Had something gone wrong?

"Ow. No need to tug my fur so hard."

Sakura jumped. "Sorry!"

As the fat cat rolled over in her lap, Sakura worried her lip. "If he contacts you, you'll let me know immediately, won't you?"

"Of course," Dokko said, lolloping upside down. "I don't know what you want from him though. I find him to be very untrustworthy."

"Why?"

"Anyone who consorts with dogs is up to no good."

Sakura smiled. "_I _trust him. And it's important he contacts me soon."

"It's usually not wise to contact agents under cover, though. That could be why you haven't heard from him. I'm surprised you even asked him to, knowing the danger it could bring."

It couldn't be helped. She was in her ninth week of pregnancy now and if she didn't act soon, the opportunity to terminate would be gone. She could act alone and he would never have to know, and perhaps if it had been anyone else, she might have done that by now already. But she respected Kakashi too much and held his opinion in too high a regard to keep him in the dark. He needed to know. And this needed to be a decision they shared.

There was, however, the almost unconscious certainty that this was already out of her hands. It was, after all, why she had run away, wasn't it? Part of her had already accepted long ago that she wouldn't hear from Kakashi again for many months…

Dokko's ears beneath her fingers suddenly spasmed and without a word the cat sprang away and rapidly disappeared beneath the veranda. The reason why became immediately apparent when the door behind Sakura jerked open. She turned with a smile, expecting Kaoru.

Only that smile slid straight off her face the moment she saw who it really was.

"Who were you talking to?" the tall girl demanded with a scowl.

"Myself," Sakura replied tetchily, and promptly turned away to try and begin ignoring her.

It had been too much to hope that she got along with _everyone _in this place, and Yui was the prime example. Unfortunately for both of them, they were stuck together sharing the same room on the same timetable. It was hard to stay out of someone's way when they shared the bed next to yours and took the same breaks.

The girl stalked into the room, flipping her long sheet of peach-coloured hair. She was the only person Sakura had ever met whose hair colour so closely resembled her own, though she was willing to bet that this was just the kind of stupid reason why Yui had taken a disliking to her. It was hard to imagine any reasonable person being upset about such a thing, but maybe she liked being unique?

Or maybe it was something more…?

"You're not fooling anyone, you know," Yui said suddenly, slapping out the bedding of her futon with a pinched expression.

"Pardon?" Sakura replied as politely and innocently as possible.

"Faking an accent isn't going to make you popular."

"I hadn't realised…" Sakura lied. "I once spent a week with an aunt from the cloud country, and when I came home I was talking as if I'd lived in Cloud my entire life. I think I just pick things up like that without noticing."

Yui scowled at her. "Maybe. Or maybe you know that we're at war with the fire country so you're trying to pretend you're one of us."

"We're at war?" Sakura repeated. This was news to her.

"We've always been at war. Ame and Konoha have always been enemies."

"I'm not from Konoha."

"You might as well be. But hey, there may not be any Konoha for much longer."

Sakura went back to looking out the open doors at the forest outside. "Why's that then?" she asked, trying not to sound interested.

"Iwa's going to annihilate them. Everyone knows that." Yui said it with a matter-of-fact shrug. "Iwa nin aren't that much better, I suppose, but if they can wipe those smug Konoha bastards off the face of the planet, they have my best wishes."

At least the propaganda machine was as strong as ever in the Rain country. "If Iwa defeats Konoha and gains control of the Fire country, who do you think they'll come after next?"

"What?" Yui glanced at her in annoyance.

"You have the Earth country on one side, the Fire country on the other. If Iwa controls both and decide they fancy Amegakure too, the Rain country won't stand a chance."

"Don't underestimate the Rain," Yui sniffed. "We've won every war we fought."

Sakura wasn't sure civil wars counted, but she decided to shrug and let it slide. She didn't fancy getting into an argument and causing even deeper resentment. Besides which, she was just too tired to fight. Pregnancy had severely limited her energy reserves so that whenever she was given a break, she often had to return to her room like this for a nap. Yui and the like clearly thought this was laziness and Sakura knew there had been complaints to Himiko, but the housekeeper merely brushed them aside. She was the only other person in this household who knew about Sakura's condition.

Come to think of it, she was the only other person in the world for that matter.

Behind her, Yui made an annoyed sound as she banged a cupboard shut. "I thought Kaoru was supposed to be mentoring you," she said. "Where is she?" And she looked suspiciously at Sakura as if she might have hidden her in a drawer or something.

Sakura shrugged. "She's with Toshio-sama."

"What?" Yui stopped dead to stare at her.

"Organising his socks or something," Sakura continued, shifting uneasily on her bed. "Hey, does Kaoru have something against Toshio? She seemed really upset when-"

"You – shut up! You know nothing!" Yui suddenly exploded at her, white as a sheet. Her cat-like eyes had narrowed on her significantly. "And you stay away from Toshio-sama!"

"Hm." Sakura shut her mouth mutely but remained calm.

All together, she made that three warnings about one man in the space of just six days, and her suspicions were beginning to fall into place. Kaoru's had warned her away in Sakura's own interests. Yui's seemed more like she was being warned away _or else_.

Only Himiko had expounded upon this person the very first day Sakura had arrived, when she'd given her a swift rundown of her duties and a summarised introduction to the family at a safe distance.

"Lord Zuru," she had said, "is a fair man. Stay out of his way and you will never have any trouble with him. Lady Zuru will be jealous of you, as she is of all the maids her husband picks, but she will mostly ignore you, even if you mess up around her, so you won't have much to fear from her. The twins are harmless, but naughty. If you make a good impression on them, they'll be as good as gold for you; but if you don't play along with their games, they'll be your worst enemies in this house. As for the young lord, Toshio-sama… try to keep out of his way if you can."

If Sakura was going to have to exercise a need for caution, she wanted to know what she was being cautious of. "Why?" she had asked Himiko.

"Because he's barely human." The disgust in Himiko's voice had been shockingly frank. "His favourite trick is to get the younger female servants drunk so he can enjoy them without resistance. Those who complain get fired. His tastes are fickle though, so if you find yourself being pursued by him, Sakura, it may be in your best interests to give in immediately. Don't give him the satisfaction of a chase and he'll grow bored quickly and never look twice at you again. Or else just ask yourself if this is even a job you want."

Sakura had been shocked, and not just a little concerned. There wasn't much a choice that she _had _to keep this job at all costs if her mission was to succeed, so quitting to escape the amorous intentions of a noble was out of the question. Now she'd met him, his friendly but patronising manner left her deeply uneasy, and seeing Kaoru's reaction began to make sense. Kaoru was trying to warn her away for her own safety.

Yui, on the other hand…

The girl was glaring at her now as if Sakura was something one of the farm dogs had vomited up on the roadside. There was no mistaking that Yui had no concern for Sakura's safety whatsoever.

Sakura turned back towards the forest, beginning to miss Ino. At one point the blonde had annoyed her as much as Yui did now, but of the two of them, the former was much more preferable.

"It's two o'clock, you know," Yui told her sharply. "You're supposed to be starting on your afternoon duties."

"I have to wait for Kaoru," Sakura said honestly, before sliding the girl a sideways look. "Or I suppose _you_ could always mentor me. Fancy leading me round by the hand?"

Yui looked downright ill at the thought.

"I'll just wait for Kaoru then," Sakura finished.

"But if she's with Toshio-sama-"

"That would be news to me since I haven't seen her."

Both girls snapped to attention at the new voice, turning hastily towards the open shoji doors where a man now stood leaning against one of the support beams of the veranda. Yui dove into a bow so fast it was a wonder her head didn't hit the ground. "Toshio-sama," she gasped.

Sakura bowed all the same, but only as much as was strictly polite. He smiled in at both of them as if there was nothing unusual about a lord popping in to pay his lowly servants a visit. Family members didn't belong in the servants' dorm. Sakura had only been here a week and even she knew that.

"Is there anything we can do to help, sir?" Yui asked delicately. Like Kaoru, her whole demeanour had changed. But where Kaoru had clammed up and gone stiff with contempt, Yui softened and became almost unbearably demure and feminine.

"Actually there was," the young man replied, one half of his mouth smiling. "Some books need unpacking in the library. I'd ask someone else, but they're all busy, I'm afraid. Would one of you girls like to lend me a hand."

_Nope,_ Sakura thought, without much hesitation.

Yui stepped forward. "I would gladly accompany you, Toshio-sama," she breathed.

"I was thinking perhaps this would be a better job for the new girl," he replied.

Yui froze. Something unpleasant crawled down Sakura's spine as she shifted her gaze warily to the young lord standing on the porch. "P-Pardon?" she muttered, suddenly feeling the heat of all of Yui's hate focused on her, even though the girl was not even looking at her.

"You can read can't you?" he asked.

"Not well," she said hopefully. If she couldn't read, he couldn't very well ask her to help out in a library could he?

"You at least know the alphabet, right?"

There was only so much illiteracy she could claim when he probably knew servants read off their chores every morning from a big board in the undercroft. "Yes," she answered dully. "I do, sir."

"Forgive me, Toshio-sama, but Sakura is very new. I don't think she's ready yet to be taking on such work," Yui said quickly, and for brief moment Sakura found herself grateful, even if Yui's motives weren't entirely pure.

"On the contrary, maybe it's time she learnt how things work around here," he returned evenly, looking down at Sakura through hooded eyes. "What do you say, Sakura?"

She was trapped. It was almost a real claustrophobic feeling, having these two people stare at her so intensely and know she couldn't refuse. She didn't want to go anywhere alone with this man. As a kunoichi, he was no threat to her. But in this place she was not, and could not be a kunoichi. She was just a peasant serving girl, and whatever her master wanted, she would have to comply. "Of course, Toshio-sama," she said mechanically, getting to her feet. "I'd be honoured to help you."

* * *

In the dead of the night, an old shadow returned to the streets of Konoha. It slipped past slumbering houses and down midnight alleys until it reached its home. There Hatake Kakashi walked right past the doorway of his own apartment and proceeded to the communal bathroom at the end of the walkway. Drops of dark red dotted the floorboards in his wake, and with a sigh he slid into the bathtub inside, too tired to move. Too numb to take off his clothes.

Instead he just reached up with his one good hand and turned the tap for the hot water and let the steadily rising water line warm him, even if it rapidly lifted all the mud and grass and blood from his clothes and turned an obnoxious shade of brown. As the warmth bit painfully into his icy hands until he could once again feels them, he began the laborious task of peeling away one piece of armour after another, although it wasn't until he heard the water beginning to splatter on the tiles of the bathroom floor that he realised he'd been teetering on the edge of consciousness. But at least he was warm. At least the wound tearing down his upper arm was relatively cleaner.

He knew he would have to do something about it. The hospital was the obvious choice, but the nature of his mission made him reluctant to choose it. Aside from the morphine, there wasn't much to endear the place to Kakashi, and he already knew of a better medic who would do the job with less fussing and greater skill.

Because Kakashi had, over the course of the last month away from Konoha, convinced himself that Sakura would take pity on him as always. Whatever had happened on that mission three months ago was so distant now that he barely remembered it, particularly since he was lucky he remembered his own name after what he'd been through during the last couple of weeks. Sakura _had_ to have forgiven him by now. Things _had_ to be what they were before. Even more than a medic, all Kakashi needed right then was that flibbertigibbet talking at him to reassure him that he was home and he was safe and he had a friend.

Slowly, he pulled himself dripping out of the red-tinged bath water and wrapped a towel around his arm as a make-shift bandage. If he'd looked at the clock, he would have seen it was three in the morning; a very unreasonable time to go calling on a friend. Yet Kakashi was unfazed in his decision to go to Sakura, and some time later, without knowing or remembering quite how he got there, he found himself at the end of her garden path, staring at a red board over her door and struggling to understand what it meant.

"For auction…" he read limply.

She was selling her house? Why would she sell her house? She'd told him enough times how much it meant to her, particularly after her mother's death, and how she intended to keep it forever for her own family when the day came.

Frowning, Kakashi negotiated the weed-riddled path to the door to snap the board off and start pressing the doorbell. He supposed she was asleep. The polite 'ding' of the bell wasn't that loud to his ears (which were already ringing anyway) and after ten minutes of pressing the button he was beginning to think she either couldn't hear it or was deliberately ignoring him.

He stepped back to locate the window of her bedroom. He'd never actually been graced with an invitation to her bedroom before, but she had told him in the past that it looked out onto the back garden, so in theory he knew where to find it.

However, throwing gravel at the upper floor windows and shouting her name in an increasingly louder voice was making no difference. He wondered if he should climb up and knock on the window himself, only he doubted he had the energy. So instead he went back to shouting. "Sakura!"

A dog began to bark somewhere nearby in agitation. As Kakashi prepared to toss another handful of gravel, a light came on in the bedroom of the house next door. A silhouette loomed in sight and the window snapped open.

"Keep your voice down!" A middle aged woman in a dressing gown hissed at him. "People are sleeping!"

"I need Sakura," he hissed back, although it was mostly because he was losing his voice rather than to respect the woman's need for quiet.

"You're wasting your breath then," she told him shortly. "She's not there."

Exasperated, he sagged. "Where is she then?" he demanded.

"She moved out about three weeks ago. It's been repossessed. If you want her, she'll probably be staying with that blonde friend of hers."

"Naruto?"

"No, no. A girl. The one across the road."

Ino. Kakashi didn't pause to thank the woman. He trudged back around the front of the house and crossed straight to the house opposite. He knew it was Ino's because he'd seen her hanging out the window not many weeks ago, the day he'd returned from that dreadful mission, though not nearly as dreadful as _this _one.

He knocked. And he kept knocking until lights began appearing through the warped glass panes beside the door. When it opened, a rather annoyed and puffy-faced Ino stood glaring at him.

"What?" she snapped.

"Where's Sakura?" he asked.

Ino's tongue clicked in annoyance and her scowl deepened to a mixture of exasperation and disgust. "You woke me up to ask _that_? Couldn't it have waited?"

"I need her help?"

"What could you possibly need her for at this hour?" Ino asked irritably. Her gaze travelled over him, looking for a clue. She noticed with some confusion at first how distinctly damp around the edges he was. It was a cold night, but it wasn't raining. And then her eyes landed on the red-stained towel clamped over his arm. Her eyes rolled. "You'd better come in then."

"I just need to find Sakura," he insisted.

"Sakura isn't here. Now get in before you bleed to death."

You could do worse than have Ino for a medic. Perhaps she wasn't quite as brilliant where it came to medicine as Sakura was, but she was competent enough. However, it wasn't without a sense of disappointment and confusion that Kakashi was guided to her sofa and ordered to hold out his injured arm.

"Sakura's house was repossessed," he murmured as Ino's slightly stinging chakra prickled his flesh. "She's moved?"

"In a sense," Ino responded tightly.

"She's not here?"

"Obviously."

"Then where is she?"

"She's on a mission, sensei," she said. "She left about three weeks ago."

"With the boys?"

"No, it was a solo."

Kakashi was quiet for a long time, his sluggish brain struggling to comprehend. "I thought she was sick…"

"Well, not that sick apparently."

"But Tsunade wouldn't send her on a solo mission. She's a team player. Solo isn't her strength," he muttered pinching his nose as a headache settled behind his eyes.

Ino sighed. "Tsunade didn't send her, sensei. Sakura took the mission herself. There you go, how does that feel?"

Kakashi moved his arm experimentally and looked at the long angry line marking his skin. It felt tight and puckered, but it no longer hurt, even if it would most likely scar. Sakura could fix things so that not even the faintest mark would remain, but he didn't mention this to Ino. That would just be rude. "Why would Sakura take a solo mission?" he asked instead.

"Things haven't exactly been great for her here. I mean, she doesn't even have a home anymore. Maybe she wanted out of Konoha for a while?" Ino suggested as she stood to fetch a med kit from a drawer in the coffee table.

"Why? How long is she gone for?"

"She'll probably be gone for the rest of the year, sensei."

She sprayed his arm with antiseptic and finished by wrapping it in a pristine, white bandage. "That'll have to do," she said, tying off the loose end. "Now take this blood replenishing pill."

Kakashi accepted it weakly, though he rolled it his palm for a long time before putting it in his mouth. Ino watched him with a raised eyebrow. "You should lie down. I've never seen you this wiped before."

There wasn't enough energy to protest. If Sakura wasn't anywhere in Konoha, he had no impetus to go anywhere else. Especially if she would be gone_ for the rest of the year_.

As he lay back, his head resting comfortably against the arm of the sofa with his shoulder tucked carefully against a cushion, Ino's face loomed over his. "Can I ask some questions now?" she asked, upside down.

He gave a shrug, barely attending.

"Why are you so wet?"

"Because I'm covered in water."

"I see. Did you just get back from your mission?"

He nodded.

"And… the first thing you did was come looking for Sakura in the middle of the night?"

"To heal me."

"Because going to the hospital would just be too easy, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Hey, you're kinda close to Sakura, aren't you?" she ventured.

"How do you mean?" he answered evasively.

"For her superior, I mean. Like, after Asuma-sensei, I didn't speak two words to my new superior outside of work. That was because he was boring, but then again Sakura used to say you're pretty boring too, so I don't understand it."

Kakashi couldn't think of what to say, so he just grunted.

Ino leaned down. Her nose wasn't too far from his forehead. "She could be gone for up to a year, you know." she told him. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"Everyone gets these missions eventually."

"Sure. But the funny thing is, she didn't seem to consider you at all when she left. I think she forgot clean about you." Ino whipped upright and padded off in the direction of her room. "Huh. Maybe I'm wrong about you two being close after all…"

The light disappeared as Ino did, leaving Kakashi staring at a dark ceiling with nothing but dim moonlight to clarify his surroundings. He didn't want to stay here, but he'd no will to move. He'd come for Sakura. He would have to stay for the lack of blood in his body.

Carefully he shifted onto his side with a soft exhale of breath. What on earth would motivate Sakura to take such a mission at a time like this? Sure, her issue with living space was enough to drive anyone on a mission out of town, but the last time he'd seen Sakura, she hadn't even been able to travel without falling sick. Was it wise to solo a mission in such a unstable condition?

Had she really not considered him at all as she left?

Well, Kakashi doubted that last part. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that Haruno Sakura wouldn't have felt obligated to stay on Hatake Kakashi's behalf. If she hadn't left as a result of her debts, she had almost definitely left because of him.

* * *

Next Chapter: _What Happened in the Library_


	11. What Happened in the Library

**House of Crows**

Chapter Ten: What Happened in the Library

* * *

_The hand-me-down that never fit,_

_I stretch the wall but never kept_

_the smell of home or how it felt_

_when you were gone and I was left._

* * *

The library was one of the largest rooms in the Zuru household, but also one of the least used by the look of it. Although she knew by now that servants were required to dust every room, even the ones that were only visited by servants with dust cloths, Sakura knew that while everything in here was clean and fresh, no one had removed a book or a scroll from this place for many, many years. She thought back to the library in Konoha which she used to visit virtually every week, and how everything was cracked and frayed and disappearing and reappearing. By contrast, the books and scrolls in this library were handsome and glossy, in such perfect condition that they were more ornaments than they were wells of knowledge. Sakura doubted some of the pages in this library had even been looked upon with human eyes.

Sakura stood awkwardly in the middle of the room as the young lord went about shutting every door, either to assure they wouldn't be disturbed or pre-emptively cutting off her escape. Then he swept past her and perfumed air followed in his wake, teasing Sakura's nose. This was definitely a very different kind of man than the type she was used to. She didn't think people like Kakashi or Naruto would ever wear cologne, even if they could be tempted to shower every day.

"Come on," he said, crooking his finger towards her as if she was a child. He led the way up a flight of floating wooden steps to the upper tier of the library. Here there were fewer windows, much less light, and the shelves were half empty, as if this part of the library wasn't yet complete.

Sakura grew increasingly more uncomfortable as Toshio led her behind long, tall rows of bookcases into more secluded annals. She had virtually resigned herself to the truth of his real intentions when they found the back wall and Sakura was confronted with an alarming heap of books and scrolls stacked in the order of chaos.

"The books need sorting and putting in their proper places," Toshio told her, and it was clear that this was an ongoing project. "The green books with gold bands are poetry. Put them in the poetry section over there. Biographies are red. Epics are red with gold. Non-fiction are black with gold. You said you could at least alphabetise?"

"Yes," Sakura said quietly.

"Good. Then you won't have any difficulty."

Sakura didn't look at him. In fact she refused on principle to meet his eyes, both out of trying to appear not only dull and meek, but cold and not at all worth bothering with. But despite her stand-offish attitude that toed the line between respectful deference and frosty contempt, she felt his eyes on her frequently. It made her feel like a mouse attempting to calmly run around in her wheel while a terrible cat loomed outside her cage, fully ready to reach inside and catch her in his claws at any moment.

She didn't recognise the kind of hunger he watched her with. She'd been given lusty looks from men before that made her feel violated just to be in the same room. But the way this man watched her with his dark, intelligent eyes just made her feel hollow, like he wanted to pick her up by the end of her tail and watch her dangle for his amusement. And like a cat, he might even let her go unharmed this time… if only to prolong the chase for another day. She was not human to him; just a plaything.

Knowing he was watching her back, Sakura's fingers felt thick and clumsy as she woodenly picked up the first book she came across. It was red, with just the author's name down the spine.

"Biography," Toshio said from close behind her.

Sakura mechanically picked up a handful of other red books and walked three stacks down to find the row dedicated to biographies. There she carefully, if a little deliberately slow, located the right places for each crisp, new book and slid it between other crisp new books, never to be touched again.

Back at the chaotic stack, Toshio had settled himself easily into a chair nearby to watch her progress contemplatively, a faint smile playing on his face.

"I think I've got the hang of this, Toshio-sama," she said, picking up a black tomb about gardening. "I imagine this is keeping you away from other more important duties."

"I'll supervise you, Sakura-chan," he said pleasantly. "You'll make less mistakes this way. Black is non-fiction. Over there."

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek and complied. So he was going to sit there and watch her work? Even if she was his employee and he was her employer, it was still extremely rude to take a seat and do nothing while a woman hurried back and forth carrying heavy volumes and scrolls. A _pregnant_ woman, no less. Though she supposed that even if he knew she was pregnant, he still wouldn't trouble himself to help. And _she _certainly didn't plan on enlightening him about her condition. She couldn't afford to rock the boat in any way while she was here.

An hour slid by, and Sakura felt every excruciating second of it. Passing cookery books onto their shelves and glimpsing the pictures inside of tantalising dishes made her maddeningly hungry. Four weeks ago she had actually been losing weight because of how sensitive she'd been to the scent and sight of food. Now she could hardly stop thinking about it. She wanted dango. She wanted mochi. She wanted chicken drizzled in hot, salty sauces and fatty fries from the corner shop back in Konoha. She quite fancied oranges. In fact she _really_ fancied oranges. But most of all she wanted ramen; cheap, watery ramen that tasted of chicken and vegetables and the plastic container they came in. Her stomach rumbled.

She'd have to take another covert trip to the pantry tonight to gorge herself. It seemed like her body felt it had a lot of catching up to do after her initial couple of weeks of just vomiting at the mere smell of cooking meat.

Meanwhile, Toshio just sat there, an open book lying in his lap that he seemed to be reading half-heartedly between uttering directions to Sakura. For the most part he seemed to take more interest in watching her impassively. Sakura did her best to ignore him, accepting his unnecessary supervision and slowly making her way through a fraction of the unorganised mound of books.

Her hand landed on batch of green texts and she paused a moment to scan the names and titles on the spines. Poetry.

And Naka.

Sakura's heart gave a thump and inexplicable moisture stung her eyes. She didn't understand her own reaction, other than perhaps the last time she had really thought about Naka and quoted him was on the veranda of an inn; not too long before she had fallen into bed (or rather, onto the floor) with Kakashi. She'd thought about that night often enough, even if the details had turned murky with time and confusion, and occasionally it moved her to tears. Usually at oddly inconvenient moments like this that seemed so out of the blue that it had to be hormones.

She kept her back stoically to Toshio as she gathered the books up and headed for the poetry aisle. She quickly sorted the books into their alphabetical places, but once again she found her hand pausing on the Naka book. Without thinking, she slipped it open to her most frequent page and began reading her favourite poem.

_The smile shines brighter than the sun on the water. The eyes are warmer than roasted honey combs over the fire. The skin is softer than the finest milk on the crispest morning. The lips redder than the petals of the first rose. _

_And the tongue is sharper than the knife in our kitchen. _

It was possible as close to a description of Sakura as she would ever get from this poet. But something about the adoration behind the metaphors, even the unflattering ones, touched her. Love despite flaws. Love _because _of flaws.

But she could no longer continue when she felt the presence behind her. Or rather, _smelt _him.

Sakura snapped the book shut and moved to quickly slot it into its natural position on the shelf, intending to turn and hurry back to her duties. She didn't want to be caught slacking, or worse yet, caught in a lie for reading poetry when she said her literacy skills were poor.

"Do you like poetry, Sakura-chan?" Toshio asked from near her right shoulder. Her whole side tingled unpleasantly in response.

"Ah… it's alright. I don't really understand most of it," she said quietly, trying to move round him to head back towards the mound of books waiting for her. But somehow his body seemed to be blocking hers.

"I find it a little pretentious anyway. Too flowery," he said.

_Philistine_, she thought. And she remembered thinking the same once about Kakashi. "I guess," she muttered.

"What do you like to read, Sakura-chan?"

She wished he would stop saying her name like that. If that idiot Ino had had some originality he would have been calling her something else and it wouldn't have been sending personal chills down her spine. "I don't read for pleasure, Toshio-sama," Sakura told him.

He bowed his head closer to her, being a fair bit taller, and suddenly something about him struck her as oddly familiar. "Oh?" he said softly. "What do you do instead? For pleasure, I mean."

Had she met him before? Maybe he just had the kind of generic face that gave the impression of familiarity where there was none, but Sakura could almost swear she knew him from somewhere else… or someone like him. If only she could put her finger on it…

"I… I knit," she answered his question lamely, though truthfully.

"Oh? What do you knit?" He stepped closer and almost without thinking, Sakura took her own step back.

"I-I knit all kinds of things. Scarves mainly. Um… hats. And socks. I tried to knit a pair of gloves once but they ended up only being able to fit people with twelve fingers." He was herding her back against the rack of poetry books. She knew it and she couldn't avoid it. And when he reached out to touch her cheek with his cold fingers, she physically jumped.

"Um… Toshio-sama?" she whispered, turning rigid.

"You're a very attractive girl, Sakura-chan. You fascinate me," he murmured in a way that might have been quite seductive if she hadn't been scared stiff of him. And for all he knew or cared she was just another servant with a fixation on knitting. She didn't believe for a second that he found anything about her genuinely 'interesting' aside from the contents of her underwear, perhaps.

"I should get back to work, sir," she said, tried to slide around him.

He grabbed her wrist roughly and pushed her back against the shelves. "What's the rush?" he asked laughingly, his boyish manner contradicting the threatening crush of his fingers around her arm. "Lighten up a little, Sakura-chan. You don't have to treat me so coldly just because I own you. I'm just a man, after all. And you're a very sexy woman…"

Her mouth dropped open, struggling with her desire to rage in disgust when her sense was telling her to shut up and keep calm. Think rationally. She could push him away. She could even knock him out if she needed to. This _boy _had no real training in any combat so he was hardly a match for her, but if she did anything to him short of killing him, there would no doubt be trouble. She _could_ kill him, she supposed, but that might prove even more problematic.

Whatever happened, she had to maintain her cover.

"Please, sir, I think I should go," she tried to move again.

This time he sighed in annoyance and shoved her back against the shelves, no longer with any pretence he cared. She wasn't proving willing, so he wasn't going to keep up the act. "You don't get to _think_," he said shortly. "You do as I tell you. Understand?"

She shook her head. "This isn't right," she urged, trying to wrest control of her arms back. "Please don't-"

"Don't think you can tell me what to do. I can have you sent back to whatever little shit hole you crawled out of faster than you can blink." He didn't say it cruelly, just like it was a matter of fact, and she supposed to him it _was. _He released her arm to begin tugging at the sash of her yukata, loosening her dress.

"No!" she said sharply, pushing her hand against his shoulder instinctively.

He caught it and brushed it aside to grab her jaw so tightly her mouth locked, "Shh," he ordered, his hot breath fanning against her neck as he reached down with his other hand to find the split hem of her loosened yukata. "Don't say 'no' until you've tried it. You might as well enjoy it, Sakura-chan."

* * *

"That's not possible."

"Since when have I not been privy to the missions of my own subordinates?" Kakashi asked with measured patience.

"Since missions became classified and need-to-know only," Tsunade replied tartly. "Which has been _always."_

Kakashi shifted his stance. Measured patience would need a longer ruler soon. "You've never had such reservations before," he pointed out. "Such pedantic adherence to official procedure is unbecoming of you, Tsunade-sama. All I want to know is where my medic is."

"And I've told you three times now. That – is – not – possible. You _don't _have clearance."

"I'm an elite jonin and former ANBU division captain, and she's my student. How much more clearance do I need?"

"You need to become Hokage."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The bandage wound around his left arm itched beneath his clothing. "I just want to know if she's alright," he said, trying to appeal to the woman's softer side.

But that was like appealing to the softer side of a rock. "Of course, she's alright. She's my apprentice," and she said it like the mere insinuation was a personal insult.

"Has she checked in yet?"

"No."

"No?"

"That's not unusual, Kakashi. She's undercover in a strange place – you know what that's like," Tsunade gave him a flippant flick her fingers. "And already you know too much about her mission."

"I hope she isn't undercover anywhere dangerous," he said tightly. "As her superior, I've observed that her fitness has not been up to standard lately."

"Then trust me. Physical fitness is not essential for her mission."

"What about emotional fitness?"

"If I refused to send emotionally unfit fighters out, we'd all be sitting at home twiddling our thumbs," she said dryly. "It's a simple enough job, if a little drawn out. You'll have your precious medic back soon, Kakashi. But for goodness sake, Ino isn't _that_ bad."

As a medic, no, but as a subordinate? He had to wonder how Asuma had coped all those years. "I'm just saying…"

"Saying what?"

"Isn't there a pagan god we can sacrifice her to?"

"Don't be absurd," Tsunade admonished. "What god would take Ino?"

"I would sleep easier if I just understood where she was and what kind of mission she's undertaking," Kakashi said. "I know it's not strictly allowed to tell me, but you've known me since I was a foot tall when you used to come around to patch up my father's injuries. Remember? You used to always bring me a sweet and tell me to play outside while you made my father moan."

She stared at him, wide eyed. "Ah…"

"In pain," he amended softly. "All I'm asking is, have you not already secured my loyalty? Do you honestly consider me untrustworthy?"

"It's not a matter of trust. But we're at the brink of certain war, and at times like these, the less we know about each other, the better. There are spies in every corner of Konoha, waiting for people like you to make a careless lapse in public and overhear sensitive mission details. Then there's the good likelihood that you'll be captured, and though I know you're as strong as anyone else under torture, both you and I would rest easy if you had nothing to give."

"What do you mean the 'good likelihood' I'll be captured, Hokage-sama?" he asked politely.

"Don't pull my leg. You've been captured in every war you're ever fought in. Your release was part of the peace negotiations in the last one, if I recall, and they wouldn't hand you over until Konoha agreed to release fifteen of their own."

Kakashi smiled.

"Don't look so smug. If you get captured during this one, I'll let you rot. Now," she said, standing up and collecting a wedge of folders to her right, "you're making me late for another meeting. Stop worrying about Sakura and worry about the team you _do _have. I have some important missions lined up for you."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," he nodded as she swept towards the door. Ever the gentleman, he thoughtfully moved to open it for her, seeing as how her hands were full.

Tsunade paused before she passed him, chewing her lip.

"Is there something else, Hokage-sama?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, giving him a cagey look. "I've been meaning to ask you for a while now… well, perhaps I left it a little late and it could be very unfair at a time like this."

"Mm?" he grunted.

She stared at him for a long moment with the Look of Judgement that could make any hardened warrior feel just ten inches tall in a heartbeat. But Kakashi was, like he was to most social scrutiny and condemnation, quite impervious. He only stared stolidly back, waiting for her to go on.

"Perhaps not," she said eventually, looking more annoyed than ever. "Forget I mentioned it."

"Sure."

Undoubtedly Tsunade had all sorts of things weighing on her mind, this being her first time in a position of leadership during a war, so Kakashi didn't think much of her comment. And whereas she rushed off to her next meeting, Kakashi headed half-heartedly in the direction of the cenotaph. He'd been disorientated that morning to wake up on Ino's sofa, and still with a pressing concern over what had become of Sakura. He'd been so eager to speak to Tsunade that he'd clean forgotten his usual morning ritual of visiting the memorial site; an error he now intended to rectify.

There wouldn't be a day that went by in Konoha when Kakashi would not visit that grave, lest he begin to forget the sacrifices that had been made, and how they had formed him. He stood under the cool, pale sun, staring at the same characters of the same name that he hadn't seen in almost a month. There was very little to say anymore. Whenever Kakashi came here, all he did was reflect and remember. And sometimes he just thought about his own life as it stood now, and wondered what, if Obito was still alive, he would do. That Obito's memory still guided his hand so often was perhaps the best way to keep him alive.

Although when it came to girls, Kakashi decided to disregard all advice Obito might have. After all, while alive he'd had all the romantic charisma of a baboon's ass. So when Kakashi thought of Sakura on her far away mission, and had the sinking feeling that she'd taken it to primarily get away from him, looking at the cenotaph provided no answer.

Kakashi rolled his shoulders with a sigh and looked away over the training grounds where he'd already noticed the bright orange outfit of a familiar teammate earlier. Naruto was out there training with Sai and their substitute leader, Tenzou. He watched them for a while as they grappled in the dusty grass while Tenzou looked on with his arms folded. They took their jobs more seriously these days, and while there was still bickering, they could be relied on to get on with things. Especially if war was coming.

They took a break and Naruto turned away, stretching his arms above his head with a beaming smile of satisfaction. Then his gaze landed on Kakashi and his face lit up even more, if that was possible. "Hey! You're back!"

Kakashi smiled lightly as the younger man jogged over. "Yo," he called, lifting his hand.

"Where've you been?" Naruto demanded, coming to a panting stop before him. Grassy stains covered his clothes and a clod of dirt was sticking to his ear. Kakashi helpfully picked it off for him.

"Nowhere special," he replied. "I won't bore you. Training?"

"Yeah, we have a mission coming up."

Tenzou caught up to them with Sai in tow. "If the old gang is back together, does this mean I can take my leave at last?" he asked.

"'Fraid so," Kakashi murmured, "though I hear we're not entirely back together."

"What, you mean Sakura?" Naruto scratched his head. "Yeah, she disappeared a few weeks ago. She's supposed to be away for quite a while, I think. In the Rain country, maybe."

Kakashi stiffened. "Rain country?"

"Maybe," Naruto emphasised. "That's what Ino said."

Even Sai's lacking observation skills narrowed on their superior. "Why? What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Kakashi said, forcing a shrug. "Just… I'm not sure she'd like the weather there."

"Rainy?" Tenzou guessed.

Kakashi pointed a finger at him. "Can't get anything past you, my little kohai."

"Coming to train, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"In a minute, I just need a word with Tenzou."

The two younger men slipped away to resume their restrained form of sparring further away across the pitch while the older pair drifted slowly towards the fence. As they strolled, Tenzou shot Kakashi a furtive, sideways glance, as if gauging whether or not this would be the pleasant kind of 'word' or the unpleasant kind.

"Everything alright?" he asked, which was the subtler way of asking if anyone important had died.

"Yeah," Kakashi replied, which was to reassure his subordinate that nothing to catastrophic had happened. "And no."

Tense seconds ticked by as Tenzou waited and Kakashi mulled, unsure how best to phrase it.

"Well, put me out of my misery, sempai," Tenzou muttered.

Kakashi sighed. "You wouldn't happen to know the circumstances of Sakura leaving, would you?"

"Should I?" Tenzou looked at him uncertainly. "All I know is that she took a solo out of the blue."

"That's a bit out of character for Sakura though, don't you think?"

"Sure. I didn't think she was the type to take a solo job over a team job. Solo's can be pretty lonely, and she's quite a…"

"Vivacious loudmouth who needs constant reassurance and attention."

Tenzou cringed. "I wasn't going to put it quite like that. More that she's the kind of girl who works best among friends."

They stopped beneath the shade of an oak tree and Kakashi spared one distracted glance over his shoulder to make sure Naruto and Sai were a good distance away before he spoke. "I think she might have left because of me."

Tenzou stared at him. "I don't understand," he said. "Why would she-"

"Because I slept with her," interrupted Kakashi in a matter-of-fact tone as he levelled a stubborn gaze at the oak's trunk.

"Wow," Tenzou whispered, stricken. "You idiot."

"I know."

"I mean… you_ profound _idiot."

"Believe me, I know," Kakashi ground out. "And the weeks before I left, it just got worse. I mean, she seemed scared of me sometimes. Actually _frightened_."

"You were really that bad, huh?"

"I don't know, I can't remember much. I was a bit drunk at the time," he admitted. "I just remember it wasn't that good."

"What makes you say that?"

"At one point she said, _'you're not very good at this,' _or something."

"Ah."

"And then possibly '_get off me, you fucking idiot_' toward the end."

Tenzou's hand crept over his mouth.

"I think she was a virgin," Kakashi mused.

"Argh, you _are _a fucking idiot!" Tenzou said, dragging his hands over his face in agony. "You're lucky her father's dead, or he'd have you strung up by your testicles by now. That guy was enormous. Actually, I'm surprised _Sakura_ didn't string you up by your testicles."

"She's not that kind of girl. The real problems – the ones that really frighten her, she will almost certainly retreat from. In this case, I think she's retreated all the way to another country."

"Why are you telling me this?" Tenzou asked unhappily. "It'll only haunt me."

"Because sometimes you just have to tell another living soul, and you're the only living soul I know who won't stick your fist through my face over this." Kakashi glanced back at the sparring boys. "And I'm worried."

Tenzou looked as if he wanted to stick his fist through Kakashi's head anyway. "Worried?" he repeated. "You've taken a sweet little loudmouth's innocence. You should be terrified for your immortal soul."

"I don't think she should have gone out on her own…" he said quietly. "I have a bad feeling. The Rain country is more dangerous than she probably realises."

"Well, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I thought maybe talking to you would give me a clue but you've been as useful as ever; which is to say, not at all."

Tenzou gave the heaven's a pleading look which Kakashi ignored.

Their gazes drifted back to the boys who were in a mutual lock a good distance away, each trying to bring the other down and getting nowhere in the process.

"If anything happens to her, would it be safe to blame myself?" he asked, more of himself than of Tenzou.

His kohai looked at him uncomfortably. "You can't blame yourself too much, Kakashi-sempai. If you were the drunk one, and she was sober one, I don't see how it can be entirely your fault. Sounds more like she was taking advantage of you."

"Well, she wasn't that sober. She'd hit her head so…" he broke off when Tenzou all but yelled into his hands in horror. Even Naruto and Sai heard it and paused in their practise to glance over curiously at the strange stooped figure of their substitute leader and the man beside him who was trying to straight him up.

"Argh! You're a fiend! I can just see it in my head," Tenzou all but wept. "You, you drunken trash, slamming your way through the door stinking of beer and sake and falling on top of that poor concussed virgin who probably didn't know up from down-"

"Put your imagination away," Kakashi told him. "It didn't happen like that. And stop acting so suspiciously or the boys will think something's up."

"Something _is_ up. Something's down too: my opinion of the Copy Ninja. Forever. Down the drain." Tenzou shook his head. "No wonder she ran away. I'm thinking of doing it myself now."

"You think I don't feel enough of an asshole already?" Kakashi muttered, "That mission was a wreck right from the start. We _both_ messed up…"

"Maybe _you_ should run away?"

Kakashi sighed. "Maybe."

Tenzou looked at him, and then quickly away with a roll of the eyes and a sigh of sympathetic exasperation. "Look, alright. I'm sure it wasn't as bad as you make it sound. I think you're worrying over nothing, sempai, and I think you're overestimating how much Sakura was affected by your… poor performance. She's a strong girl. If anyone can handle a solo mission, it's her."

"Maybe," Kakashi said again, feeling a hundred years old all of a sudden to think Sakura was off in the Rain country. A place he'd only just returned from himself. People presumed it had calmed down since the short conflict with Ame a few years ago… but they didn't know the half of what kind of resentment and militancy still bubbled away beneath the surface.

For a while the two men said nothing as they gazed unseeingly into the distance. "You know, Tenzou…" Kakashi sighed, "I think this war will be the death of me."

"Don't joke about it," the younger man rebuked him sharply.

Kakashi looked him dead in the eye. _I'm not joking_, went the unsaid reply, but he fixed a slight smile and shrugged. "You're right."

They resumed watching the sparring match and said no more on the subject.

* * *

Night at the Zuru household was something that Sakura was only really just beginning to get the hang of. The first couple of nights she'd been kept awake by the terrific noise of the nocturnal wildlife outside. It was usually too hot to do anything but leave the doors to the veranda wide open, and the sound of amorous frogs with voices like hammers raining down on nails was a difficult lullaby to fall asleep to. Then there were the owls – different from Konoha owls that hooted sleepily to each other from nearby trees. These owls shrieked in creepy, near human voices that seemed to carry miles across the rainforest. And then, of course, there were the unidentifiable crunches and rustles of animals in the forest. Large. Unseen. Possibly man-eating.

These were sounds that Sakura had begun to tune out and ignore. The bark of frogs and the screams of owls were no longer enough to keep Sakura awake. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was so bone-weary at the end of the day that it would have taken nothing short of an air horn in her ear to keep her awake.

But tonight, despite the same old tiredness that seemed to radiate throughout her entire body and into her soul, she couldn't even close her eyes. Around her lay the three other futons with the snoozing forms of Aki, Yui, and Kaoru. One of them was snoring lightly, but this was another sound that Sakura had learned to ignore and, like the noises outside, she no longer even heard it. Through the gap in the shoji doors, she could just make out the fireflies drifting amongst the trees like tiny, moving stars between the leaves.

Sakura rolled over, away from the sight, and pulled the covers more tightly about her body. She couldn't sleep. She no longer felt safe to.

As far as anyone else was concerned, Sakura had been raped in the library that afternoon. She was just another in a long line of household staff who had to play victim to an overindulged monster masquerading as a noble heir. Of course, Sakura had no intention of playing a real victim. Even though she had been taught that using ninjutsu on an undercover mission should be avoided at all costs, this was one situation where she felt the need for an exception.

From the moment he'd touched her skin, she'd had him caught in a genjutsu. She only had to retreat behind another stack of books and wait for a few minutes while a scene of pure fantasy seeded in his memory. She kept it simple. Her experience wasn't great, but she knew enough to make it realistic. She made sure to leave him with the impression that it had been awkward and painful and unsatisfying, in the hope that this would make him less likely to seek her out in future. At the same time it was also tempting to grievously traumatise him by giving him the idea that perhaps his little tool had failed to perform, but enough kunoichi psychology classes made her decide against the urge. She couldn't humiliate him. He might be the type to retaliate against any injuries to his ego. Even if she wanted to hurt him in ways that would make even Ibiki cringe, for the sake of her mission, she could not stick out and risk being sent away, or worse.

So Sakura left little embellishment. From Toshio's perspective, he took a meek, unresponsive girl against a stack, one he couldn't enjoy and whose silence and refusal to whimper in either pleasure or pain left him wishing it to be over as soon as possible. After she slumped to the floor, he ordered her away, and she left in pitiful shambles. He took a moment to adjust his own clothing and appearance, and Sakura ended the illusion there.

The young lord came back to himself with one heavy blink, as if momentarily struck by dizziness. Then his head cleared and the memory slotted right into place. From behind tightly packed rows of books, Sakura watched silently as a small, satisfied smile appeared on his lips and he reached down to an adjust a belt he'd never actually unfastened. Then he turned smartly and left the library in unhurried strides, as if nothing unusual had taken place there at all.

Sakura now lay in her own bed, wondering if she'd saved herself at all. If she'd had to the envision the memory the same as him, did that mean he'd still violated her? Perhaps not physically, but at the end of the day, it was always the memories that made people what they were in the present. Then again, she had still turned the tables on him. He'd intended to rape her body, but instead she'd raped his mind. That was surely enough of a consolation?

No, she thought. It wasn't. She still felt degraded and humiliated by the fact alone that she'd allowed the experience of abusing her body. Perhaps when it came time for her to leave this place, she would visit upon him some suitable payback. Best of all, she had several months to plan and execute it. She would make it so he would never be tempted to touch another girl as long as he lived.

And imagining ways in which to hurt Toshio proved to be wonderfully relaxing. She smiled slightly, thinking of vats of acid and slowly descending winches, and closed her eyes. But before her much more imaginative dreams could take over the work, a light weight padded over her quilt. Small, soft paws picked over her legs and up her body to stand on her chest where a whiskered nose dabbed hers politely.

"Hello," Dokko whispered, tiny claws prickling against the fabric of her cover.

Cat breath was another horror Sakura thought about subjecting Toshio to. She sat up and the fat cat flolloped into her lap. "What is it?" she whispered back.

Dokko flicked his ears and slunk back towards the open shoji doors. He looked back at Sakura with the strong hint that she should follow him, so with a sigh she slipped out from under her covers and picked her way between the other sleeping girls' futons just as silently as the cat. Outside, only a thin sliver of moon hung in the sky, which didn't allow much for visibility, though Sakura could easily follow Dokko's white tipped tail in the darkness as he led her further along the veranda until they were beside one of the unoccupied rooms and couldn't be overheard.

"I got you a present," Dokko said, disappearing beneath the porch.

Sakura groaned inwardly. "It's not another rat, is it?" Already she'd woken up twice this week to find such a little 'present' next to her pillow.

"Nom, yew thed yew wan'ed thith." The cat reappeared, dragging with him a large bundle of something by his teeth.

Sakura crouched down in puzzlement to relieve him of his burden, and as she weighed the soft round objects in the netted bag, she gasped in delight. "_Oranges!_" Sakura hissed. "Oh, I could have killed for one of these! Thank you, Dokko!"

She scooped him up to deposit a loud kiss between his ears and then immediately set about devouring half the bag."

"Normally your mate is supposed to keep you fed, but since you don't have one, I suppose _someone_ has to look after you." Dokko resumed his draped position over her lap. "Stroke me, please."

"I don't need looking after," Sakura said, trying to alternate between peeling an orange and stroking a cat. "I'm grateful for the delicious oranges you stole and all, but I don't need you to feed me."

"If I let my human starve to death, it wouldn't reflect very well on me as a contractor. Just shut up and eat your oranges." Dokko yawned mightily and flexed his claws. "I have news anyway."

"From Konoha?"

"No," he said. "I pre-emptively hid in one of the master's cabinets in his private room this afternoon, and when he arrived I got to overhear some of the things he discussed with his retainer."

"And?" Sakura asked eagerly round another mouthful of fruit.

"And… I admit I think I slept through the good bits. But when I woke I heard him saying something about the guest rooms."

"The guest rooms?"

"Yes. He wants the retainer to redecorate some of the guest rooms for next week."

"Next week, huh?" Sakura sucked on an orange slice thoughtfully. "So they'll be entertaining visitors. Any idea who?"

"No, but they seem to be important ones from the sound of it. The man spoke quite reverently of them…"

"I get the feeling this family likes to look down on most people, even other noble families. You'd have to be someone extremely important to earn their respect and deference."

"Like leaders of a crime syndicate, no doubt?" Dokko purred dryly.

"Maybe," Sakura hummed. "Which rooms are going to be used?"

"The ones in the Crane wing. The master bedroom down there is going to be prepped first."

"I'll see if I can lend a hand… I might be able to slip a bug or two in there."

"Good luck and be careful. If these _are_ the people we're looking for, they'll be wise to tricks like that."

"Yeah…" Sakura sighed and looked down at her bundle of oranges. Their number had already halved, and Sakura decided to store the remaining fruit with the stash she was keeping in her personal cupboard. Whenever a craving hit her at an odd moment, she was more or less prepared with stacks of strawberry cakes and apples and a jar of pickles and anything else she had managed to stealthily swipe from the pantry. She could now add succulent oranges to her collection.

"There's really been no word from Konoha?" Sakura asked flatly.

"No," answered the cat, the same as always. "What were you expecting anyway."

"Not much," she admitted. "Just… more than this."

* * *

Kakashi yawned as he finally managed to pop the lock of his own apartment open, sans the key. It almost rebounded straight in his face the moment it hit the enormous pile of mail just inside – a pile which nearly made his soul wither at the sight of it. Couldn't people stop pestering him for a month? Did they really think he cared about utility bills when he was out fighting for his own life as much as for the sake of the village?

He kicked the door shut with a bang and crouched the gather the biggest armful of letters he could manage before transporting them across the small room to dump them upon his desk. There were still more on the floor, and several littering his wake, but Kakashi wasn't in any hurry to sort through the masses of paper. Instead he plonked himself down upon his desk chair, put his feet up on the windowsill and proceeded to rub a little sandy crust from the corner of his eye.

Alone, in the privacy of his home, Kakashi wasn't particularly industrious. He spent so little time in this one-room apartment that there was very little to do here other than sleep. His most interesting personal affects were probably all crammed into his locker at the administrative headquarters. This 'home' was simply the only place he'd been able to afford after his father had died. He'd never grown attached to it, yet he'd never found the motivation to move and expand. All he needed was a couple of drawers to hide the clutter and cupboard to house all three of his outfits (including his pyjamas).

There was still about an hour left before he usually retired to bed, and he was done turning his conscience over and over on the subject of Sakura. He was too tired to think about her. Too tired to worry. His arm ached and that mound of letters was mocking him.

With a sigh he idly picked up one letter and analysed the handwriting. A bill from the landlord; he threw it to one side. He picked up another. His neighbour's handwriting, so probably a complaint about noise he hadn't been here to make – he tossed that one to the other side. Advertisements for shops, services, and take-aways… they all fell into the trash can, along with offers of insurance and mysterious blue pills that promised to make him feel like a man again. Notes from Genma and some of his other acquaintances asking him to tell them when he was back in town so that they might meet up and sponge a free drink off each other. Another weird letter from that crazy girl at the blacksmith's who liked to talk in too much detail about parts of him her mother probably didn't approve of. Come to think of it, if he kept on rifling through this pile he'd probably find a letter from the same woman warning him to keep his private parts out of her perverted daughter's imagination.

Kakashi paused to prop his chin against his fist and stare down at the letters still strewn over the desk. Not all were officially stamped letters, he supposed, eyes landing on one piece of folded cream paper that lay mingled with the envelopes. His fingers plucked at it half-heartedly, opening it and flattening it as his bored gaze roved over the lines.

The first time he read it, he hardly took a single word in. It wasn't until he came to the name at the end that his eye fully opened and his feet fell from the windowsill. He grabbed the note in both hands now and hastily devoured the words.

_Kakashi-sensei,_

_I'm in a bit of trouble right now, and I need your help. I have to leave on a mission today so I suppose I won't be able to see you for a while, but I need you to contact me as I have something very urgent to say to you. I know Pakkun can contact my summon Dokko, and he'll be able to give you a time and a frequency. I only have a long-range radio, I'm afraid. I wish I could speak to you face to face, but under the circumstances that won't be possible, and perhaps it's better this way anyhow._

_Please contact me as soon as you can. You're the only one I trust to speak to.  
_

_Much love, Sakura._

"Much love," he repeated to himself musingly.

For several minutes his gaze ran over the lines repeatedly. A bit of trouble? Something urgent to say? He looked up at the wall above his desk, his mind racing for answers. He knew she was having trouble with her debts and her house… was that why she'd left after all? Why did she need to speak to him? Did she want to make amends for the drift in their relationship? Did she want to apologise? Was she as tired of their estrangement as he was?

Kakashi unsnapped the button of his flak vest's pocket and retrieved a narrow scroll. Almost without even noticing the pain, he bit his thumb and dragged it over dozens of older blood stained verses as he flapped it open.

Pakkun rolled into existence behind his chair, panting. "Yup?" he asked, licking his chops.

"I need you to do me a favour," Kakashi said, leaning back in his chair to look down at the dog. "I need you to contact another summon."

Pakkun stopped panting and cocked his head. "Another dog… or what?" he asked, confused.

Kakashi's fingers tapped rapidly against the desk for a moment. He knew this wasn't going to go down well. "A cat, actually," he told the pug.

As predicted, a terrific frown appeared on Pakkun's little face, which was impressive for an animal who had been born frowning. "A cat," he repeated flatly.

"By the name of Dokko," Kakashi said, consulting the name on the note.

"I don't know any cats called Dokko," Pakkun retorted.

"You chased him once."

"Good."

"Well, not really. Could you make an effort and find this cat? Apparently he has some information for me."

"It's easier to summon creatures from affiliated clans," the dog explained. "On the whole we're _not_ affiliated with any cat clans. It could take a while to summon this… Dokko."

"How long?" Kakashi asked.

Pakkun only shrugged. "There's only so many cat clans… we at least know where they all are generally. Once we find the right clan, summoning the individual is easy enough. Could be a couple of days, mind."

"That's fine. Just hurry, if you can," Kakashi said, nodding.

"Right you are." Pakkun turned tail and disappeared in a wiggly puff of smoke.

Kakashi looked back at the note in his hand and read it once more for good measure. A slow smile crept over his masked face as he got to the end again. "Much love," he murmured softly to himself. He set the note down with a faint chuckle and stood to stretch and prepare for bed, feeling infinitely more light-hearted than he had in a long time.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Syndicate_


	12. The Syndicate

_A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy tomorrow, wrap up warm, sing carols, open prezzies, drink till you piss brandy, but whatever you do, don't eat the sprouts._

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Eleven: The Syndicate

* * *

_Why am I walking barefoot,_

_Upon this road with no one around?_

_I close my eyes to this decision._

* * *

It was official, thought Sakura. Eriko and Aiko were quite possibly the worst two things ever invented in the history of all time. This particular conviction was brought on by the fact that tar did not wash out of dove-grey silk dresses.

The morning had started typically enough. The alarm had shrieked at six, the girls had gotten up, Yui had accidentally trod on Sakura's foot once or twice on purpose, and then Sakura had hung precariously over the toilet for a few minutes, wondering if she really was going to be sick this time. She hadn't though, and the queasiness had worn off soon enough to allow her to dress and wash in order to toddle down to the servant's message board where her schedule for the day was written out on the chart.

After enjoying her bland breakfast at six-thirty (she still couldn't stomach much in the morning) and clearing away her plate to make room for the second serving of breakfast at seven for the other group of servants, she went outside to help Himiko beat some new life back into some old rugs. Sakura figured they were from the guest room.

Himiko was still one of the most pleasant women Sakura had come across in this place. She always wore a smile and always asked how Sakura was feeling that day, and reassuring her that the sickness and the fatigue and the weird appetite was all normal. As grateful as Sakura was for her friendliness and advice though, she always felt uncomfortable talking about her condition. Himiko seemed to be under the impression that Sakura _wanted_ a baby and was _happy_ about being pregnant. In truth, Sakura wanted to think about it as little as possible, as if perhaps avoiding the issue would make it go away. It was a silly way to think, and she'd told herself enough times, but facing up to the problem terrified her. She _still_ had no idea what to do.

After she'd beaten the dust mites to within an inch of their lives, her next scheduled task had been a joint task with the other maids. She met Aki, Yui, and Kaoru outside a bedroom in the Nightingale wing and, once together, they had enough confidence to enter and confront the occupants:

The twins.

Going by appearance, there had never been two more angelic children. The two nine year old girls were sweet-faced, big eyed and their glossy black hair lay in charming curls around their rosy cheeks. People who saw them said "Ooh, what nice little girls." People who knew them crossed to the other side of the street.

Sakura had, for the most part, managed to avoid incurring their wrath. In the first week, they'd zoned in on her as the new maid and a possible new target for mischief, and for three days they had tagged her, testing her. When Sakura had been assigned to help them dress and comb their hair, they had suggested they style Sakura's hair as well. Remembering Himiko's advice that these girls could be her greatest allies or her worst enemies had made her wary, but she'd decided to humour them. Perhaps where other maids refused to indulge their silly games and as such gained their contempt, Sakura allowed them to fix her hair in what seemed like multiple strange styles, much to their delight. They had also noticed Sakura's carefully painted pink nails and expressed envy, since their mother forbid such grown up things. Sakura had naturally promised to smuggle them a bottle or two, and the next day when their dresses turned up covered in unwashable pink polish, much to their mother's horror, Sakura claimed no knowledge.

But even if Sakura had gotten more or less on their good side by encouraging their naughtiness, that didn't go for all the maids.

"Girls," Yui declared as they entered. "Put your toys away. We need to measure you."

This was the wrong way to approach the twins. They disliked being ordered around, especially by servants. Even at this young an age they had already acquired the Zuru superiority complex, and they knew the difference between nobility and peasantry, a hierarchy that defeated the hierarchy of children and adults.

The two girls looked at each other blankly, and then they smiled. "Ok," they chimed agreeably, and Sakura's finely honed sense for trouble began tingling.

Five minutes later, all four maids were racing to the washroom.

"Those little bitches!" Yui seethed, sticky brown bands across her dress, arms, hands and feet.

"We ought to tell their mother about this!" Aki cried, looking fretfully at her marked hands.

"Don't touch your face!" Sakura ordered Kaoru, who was trying to reach up to brush her hair aside. "Tar stains are permanent."

"They knew that would happen!" Yui raged on.

"Of course they did," Kaoru said more placidly. "If they didn't know the balcony had been tar painted, they wouldn't have told us to go out there to look at the kitsune."

"I don't think there even _was_ a kitsune," Aki said unnecessarily.

In the female servants' bathhouse, they hurried undressed and sat down in the shower room to begin scrubbing ferociously.

"It's not coming off!" Kaoru wailed.

"We'll be marked for life!" Aki agreed. "The family will fire us if they see us like this!"

Sakura concentrated on scrubbing her own skin, certainly just vain enough to actually be a little worried about have brown bands across her palms, arms and feet for the next few weeks. She was sure they wouldn't be fired though. Even if they had essentially been selected for purely aesthetic reasons.

"I think it's coming off," she said at last.

"Really?" Aki asked eagerly, relief flooding her face. Then she looked at Yui and seemed to belatedly remember that she wasn't supposed to like Sakura at all and turned away with a vague scowl. Sakura ignored her. Satisfied that her hands were more or less clean, she set to work on her feet.

By now the hysteria was dying down. The tar paint was slowly washing off, and Yui and Aki relaxed enough to begin planning vengeance upon the twins – which seemed to involve going to their mother. This, Sakura felt, was naïve. She doubted Lady Zuru paid much attention to her daughters, and doubted even more that she would care if they acted contemptuously towards servants who were beneath them anyway. It was quite likely that the reason the girls were so wildly naughty was because of such motherly disinterest in the first place.

Sakura stretched out one clean foot and examined her wiggling toes. It certainly looked clean from this angle at least.

A giggle to her left made her glance round, just in time to see Aki and Yui look away from her. They were speaking in hushed voices, thought it was obvious they were talking about her. The way they kept glancing at her and laughing gave it away.

"So, Sakura," Yui suddenly said, in such faux friendliness that it reminded her of Ino at her most vindictive period some years ago. "Cook says the pies have been going missing from the kitchen. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

The two girls burst out in gales of laughter now, and Sakura felt the hot throb of anger and humiliation sting her heart. She wanted to thump them, hard. Mostly she wanted to cry. Kaoru glanced over at her but said nothing. In private she would tell Sakura that the other two girls were beasts and should just be ignored, but those two beasts _were_ Kaoru's friends too, and she wouldn't dare reprimand them openly. She was the kind of girl who wanted to be liked by everyone and would avoid getting involved in a dispute at all costs.

And suddenly Sakura felt completely alone. Here she was, sitting naked in a washroom with three beautiful girls – all of whom were sleek and slender and clear-skinned. Never before had Sakura felt so completely out of place. Perhaps when she had arrived she'd been just as sleek and slender, but there had since been some… changes.

They were growing harder to ignore.

Sakura rapidly finished her other foot and quickly exited the shower room to dress in the adjoining changing room. She just wanted to get the hell out of there and maybe have a good cry in a closet somewhere before her emotions betrayed her and she broke down somewhere far too public. But as she pulled on her underwear, she caught sight of herself in the full length mirror beside her and she began feeling faint and sick all over again.

It was pretty clear what Aki and Yui had been laughing about. Sakura had put on weight. There really was no ignoring that now. Her breasts, normally petite with no need for a bra, were now even larger than when she'd left Konoha. She was having to borrow Kaoru's much more ample underwear to accommodate a new bust that barely fit her own clothes anymore, although thankfully the pretty, patterned yukata she was forced to wear were adjustable enough, even if her bras weren't.

But it wasn't just her breasts that had suddenly jumped two cup sizes. Her once flat stomach was now noticeably convex, and even her hips and thighs were definitely rounder than she remembered.

And even though Sakura had known for over a month that she was pregnant, only now did it really hit her.

_She was_ _pregnant_!

This wasn't just an ink mark on a pregnancy test. This wasn't just a notion in her head. It was real. It was tangible. Sakura pressed her hands to her own belly and felt for herself the new contour of her body that would only get bigger as the weeks passed. Perhaps to the other girls she was only a little heavier than usual, and probably within the realms of normal for civilian girls, but for Sakura, whose job it was to know her body and work with it in harmony, the change was stark and shocking.

It felt like this was the first time she truly understood the gravity of her situation. She was ten weeks pregnant and Kakashi hadn't come through for one reason or another. If she waited for him to be part of this decision, it would be too late. This was something she had to do for herself. It was her life that was on the line here, and she was too young – too _incompetent_ – to have a child of her own. She was _terrible_ with children! She found them annoying and sticky and some of them smelled! What if she had a boy as naughty and uncontrollable as Naruto had been? What if she had a girl as terrible and vindictive as the twins?

Sakura pulled on her ruined yukata and made her way back to her room to find something clean and fresh to wear. Every step was dogged by a tingle of fear and panic that bubbled just beneath the surface of her demeanour. She was lost, and so far from home and everyone she loved was unreachable. And what was worse – she had made it this way. She'd run from the one problem she couldn't leave behind, and all she had to show for it was isolation when she least needed it.

Back in her room, Sakura barely thought about what she did next. After she finished dressing in a new, dark red yukata, instead of returning to finish the rest of her duties, she went to the cupboard and pulled out the backpack she'd used on her journey from Konoha. Into this bag she stuffed a change of clothes, a good deal of her hoarded snack supplies, and then filled the canteen with fresh water. It was a long way to Amegakure after all. She needed to be prepared.

Pulling on her most comfortable shoes, Sakura exited onto the veranda and slipped around the secluded edge of the house, looking for the path that led into the forest.

She turned the corner where the bathhouse met the main house and stopped dead.

The gardener who had been tying a young sapling to a bamboo pole looked up. He looked as gruff and wild as ever, and he raised an enormous wedge of an eyebrow upon noticing her loaded backpack.

"Excuse me," she said in a thin voice. "You wouldn't happen to know which direction Amegakure is, would you?"

He leant on the bamboo pole and shifted his weight thoughtfully. "Down this path," he said, nodding to the irregular slabs of stone leading behind him. "Past the kitchens, till you reach the stile. Turn left and follow the lamp posts until you meet the road. There'll be signs pointing to Ame."

"Thank you," Sakura breathed.

"But I wouldn't recommend going," he said before she could move. "It's a dangerous road, especially for young women such as yourself. If you're not set upon by wild animals, you'll be set upon by rogue nin. And if you even reach the village, the Ame nin don't take kindly to foreigners."

"I'll be alright," Sakura assured him. Wild animals and rogues she could handle, and she'd been submerged in so many thick rain country accents the last two weeks that she could imitate it with ease should she have to try and convince any guards about her nationality.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he remarked gruffly as Sakura slipped away down the path.

The kitchens were busy, and as usual the doors were wide open, but no one noticed as Sakura passed by on her way to the stone wall guarding the perimeter of the estate. The last time she'd stepped over the same stile, she had wondered how pregnant she would have to be before such small feats of physical exertion became impossible. Apparently, three months wasn't it. Even if Sakura _was_ starting to feel heavier, she slipped over the gap in the stone wall with ease and continued at a strong, steady pace through the forest, following the gardener's directions.

From studying the map back in Konoha, she knew roughly that Amegakure was about twenty five miles from the Zuru's estate. If she kept a steady pace to avoid tiring herself out, she would hopefully be there by the end of the day.

However, the path that the gardener had set her on was hard to follow. It was often less of a path and more of a vague rut between enormous ferns and grasses, sometimes meandering under arching tree roots and then took her in a near maddening circle before continuing on. This seemed to be one used by wild animals more than people despite the intermittent and fairly random placing of lamp posts. The sounds of nearby rustling and fluttering were only faintly alarming though. Whatever unseen creatures lay deeper in the foliage, Sakura could cope. She was willing to bet she was probably the most dangerous thing in this jungle anyway. Nothing would dare attack her if it knew what was good for it.

Or at least that was what she thought before she heard something crashing through the undergrowth behind her at great speed. Sakura turned, lifting her hands, expecting she would have to defend herself from an overly bold tiger or something with equally pointy teeth and claws, but instead the only thing that came hurtling through the ferns was Aki.

"Wait!" the dark haired girl called out, climbing over a large knot of roots to reach Sakura who could only watch in surprise. Aki was severely out of breath, and still wearing her tar-ruined yukata from that morning, a tragic array that had grown to include multiple green and brown stains from her dash through the jungle. One of her shoes was missing, and as she came to a panting halt before Sakura, her hair appeared to be filled with leaves and greenflies.

"Wait," she panted again, "you can't go! I'm sorry! Please don't leave because of us!"

"Aki…" Sakura deadpanned. "Did you run all that way?"

"Yes," she wheezed. "I saw your backpack was gone, and you'd taken your clothes and that food, and the gardener said you'd left for Ame and I knew we went too far this time!" She reached out and took Sakura's hand. "Please, come back Sakura! Himiko-san will kill us if you don't! We're already short-handed and I don't want to be responsible for driving you off…"

Sakura sighed and extricated her hand from Aki's grip. "You shouldn't have bothered. I'm only going to Ame to take care of some business. I would have been back in a day or two."

Aki stared at her. "But… you can't just take off like that! Everyone's so worried! And you can't go to Ame on your own without a guard escort. This forest is really dangerous." As she said this, a branch cracked somewhat above them, and Aki flinched heavily, as if expecting a terrible monster to come leaping down upon her.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said. She'd been in such a panic to leave and get to Amegakure that she hadn't even considered the possibility that people would worry about her – least of all Aki, who seemed to hate her as much as Yui. "I didn't think about that…"

"It doesn't matter, just come back with me." Aki tugged at her sleeve.

"But I have to go to-"

"If you really need to, we can get you an escort, but _please_ come home, Sakura," Aki begged. "You don't know how dangerous this place is."

To maintain her cover, Sakura couldn't very go on ahead alone. She was supposed to be a typical civilian girl after all, and typical civilian girls didn't stride off into a dangerous forest without any concern for their own safety. She would have to go back with Aki, to get a proper escort if not to beg permission to leave at all.

"Ok," Sakura said thickly, and started to follow Aki back along the path they had come down. She didn't know if she was frustrated to be heading back to the Zuru estate now. She felt she should have been, considering the urgency of her situation, and although she wasn't _relieved_, she couldn't seem to identify any irritation at being delayed. She wondered if her heart was in too much of a jumble to know what it was supposed to be feeling.

"I'm sorry," Aki whispered mournfully again. "I know I've been a bitch to you. I couldn't bear to think that it was something I did that drove you off… because it's not that I don't like you."

Sakura said nothing.

"It's just… Yui," the dark haired girl finished.

"Yui?" Sakura repeated.

Aki nodded. "She's my best friend, and she _hates_ you. So… I thought there was a reason. But I'm sorry now. I always thought I was a nice person, but maybe I'm not."

"Aki, don't worry about it," Sakura admonished. "I know what it's like to pick on someone just because your friends do. You feel like garbage when you realise what an ass you've been though."

Aki blushed, catching the insinuation that she'd been a prime example of such an ass. "Who've you ever picked on?" she asked doubtfully.

"A boy, when I was younger. He was stupid and annoying and everyone hated him, so I did too. Now he's one of my best friends, even if he is still stupid and annoying." Sakura grinned at Aki. "So it's not too late to make amends I suppose."

"Yui will never speak to me again," Aki said sadly.

"Stuff Yui." Sakura said shortly. "I never did anything to her."

"You didn't have to. She was bound to hate you the moment you arrived."

"Why?"

They slipped back beneath an enormous fungus growing between two trees and found themselves on a wider path where they could walk side by side. Aki looked guiltily at Sakura as she wrung her filthy hands. "You're the same as her."

Sakura nearly strangled the other girl. She was _nothing_ like that cat-eyed bitch queen!

"I mean, your hair," Aki said, gesturing to her own head. "You both look a lot alike, you know… and Yui hates rivals. She gets on with me and Kaoru because she doesn't think we hold a candle to her – and yes, she basically said that, so I know she thinks it. And she's all about that _horrible _Toshio. She's his favourite, you see. She hates anyone who catches his eye."

"Ah." It was all as Sakura had suspected.

"She's worried you're his type as well, and that he'll drop her in order to have you. You're cuter than she is, too. She hates that."

"Well, you can tell her to stop worrying," Sakura said bitterly. "He already 'had me'.

Aki's expression leapt in surprise. "When?" she demanded.

"Last week. In the library. He hasn't been near me since, so Yui should rest assured that I haven't wooed him away from her."

"I see," Aki said softly. "He's a brute, isn't he? He's done it to most of us. He got Kaoru when she was drunk last year during my birthday party. He took her out to the forest and… well, she got over it. You have to, or you're out on your own, and not all of us have anywhere else to go."

Sakura felt hot anger tingle down her arms to her fingers. They itched to clamp themselves around a certain man's throat and begin squeezing till something cracked. "What about you?"

"Back before you or Kaoru or Yui arrived, it was me and about seven other girls. They all left because of him, one by one. Either they were attacked and couldn't bear to stay, or they feared they would be next and left before it happened. But he never went for me."

"Why?" Sakura asked.

"Because my uncle would kill him." Aki said, and from the way she said it, Sakura knew she was deadly seriously. She hadn't said it in the same way she'd claimed Himiko would kill her if the head of staff found out Sakura was gone – what _that_ really meant was that Aki would be told off and perhaps have her wages cut for a week. But when she spoke about her uncle… she meant every word.

"Who is your uncle?" Sakura asked quietly, hardly sure if she wanted to know.

"Karasu."

Something about that name troubled Sakura, like a prickle of déjà vu suddenly crept over her. It wasn't a common name, but she was sure she'd heard it before. Or perhaps it was just the way Aki had said it. "I don't… I don't know him," Sakura said.

Aki slid her a grim look. "You'll probably find out eventually," she said, and she didn't sound all that happy about it.

Eventually they came to the very same stile Sakura had stepped over just half an hour before, once again Sakura was 'home'. But before they left the garden, Aki stopped her. "Can we be… friends then?" she asked with such enormous self-consciousness that Sakura didn't have the heart to rebuke her. "I'm sorry for all the things I did. I'm not… I'm not a bad person. I think you're nice, and I don't care what Yui thinks about you."

"I don't care what Yui thinks about me either," Sakura said, offering the other girl a friendly smile to let her know she was forgiven.

Aki, looking much more relieved, led her back along the garden path to the servants quarters.

Himiko was waiting there anxiously. She sagged with relief to see Sakura again. "There you are!" she cried, coming forward to enfold Sakura in a motherly hug. "Don't do that again! If you're unhappy, you _have _to tell me! You mustn't run away like that."

She really was so much like her mother, and the genuine concern Himiko offered pulled at something very raw and sensitive inside Sakura. Unsanctioned tears sprang to her eyes, though she tried to control them. "It's alright, I wasn't running away," she promised. "I just needed to sort something out in Amegakure."

"Now? Alone? In the condition you're in?"

Sakura paused before nodding. "Yes."

Aki looked on in confusion, trying to understand what Himiko meant, but the older retainer flapped a hand at the dark-haired girl. "You can go back to your duties, Aki. Tell Yui I want a sharp word with her later, but I'll deal with Sakura for now," she said, as she steered Sakura back indoors to the room where Sakura and the other girls slept. Once inside she shut the doors against any prying eyes and ears and immediately went to the table in the corner where a kettle sat. She switched it on and invited Sakura to sit next to her. "Now," she said while the water began to boil. "What on earth is going on?"

Sakura couldn't think of anything to say.

"It isn't Toshio-sama, is it?" Himiko prompted.

"I'm not afraid of him," Sakura said, shaking her head.

"And I doubt Yui and Aki got to you that much. You're a stronger girl than that. Nevertheless, I'll have them scrubbing the toilets for the next month after what Kaoru told me."

With a sigh, Sakura shook her head again. "Don't punish Aki too hard. She was just following Yui, but she didn't mean harm."

"Mm," Himiko agreed. "What about Yui?"

"Oh, you can do whatever you like with her."

Himiko chuckled. Though she was clearly fond of all the girls, even she had to admit that Yui was a piece of work sometimes. "You certainly picked your timing, Sakura," she reproached. "We're in the middle of preparations for some important guests. The last thing I need is my staff walking away without even an explanation. And Amegakure is eight hours away by foot. Did you really intend to walk all the way there on your own? You're almost three months pregnant, Sakura, you have to think of the baby."

Sakura's fingers tensed in her lap. "It's not a baby," she replied sharply.

Himiko's hands, in process of reaching for two cups, paused, "Ah," she said, blinking at Sakura. "I think I understand now. You went to get rid of it, didn't you?"

Emotion threatened to choke her again. Sakura pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes and sniffed. "I can't do it," she said, her voice wobbling treacherously. "I can't be a mother. I don't have a choice."

"Why have you waited until now?"

"Because I'm so frightened I can hardly think about it," Sakura said, a soft sob breaking from her throat. "You're right. I ran away. I ran away from home to come here, because I thought that would make it easier. But I still don't know what I'm going to do. There's no more time left but I don't know what to do."

"How many weeks along are you?"

"Ten."

Himiko hissed between her teeth. "You'll be cutting it close, but it's not impossible. I can arrange for one of the guards to take you to Ame tomorrow. Hopefully you could be back before our guests arrive, but if this is what you want."

The offer was on the table. Sakura only had to take it.

"Raising a child alone isn't easy, I know," Himiko continued. "It's up to you. No one else can make this decision for you."

Though that was exactly what Sakura had hoped would happen. She'd been hoping since the moment she left that Kakashi would contact her and tell her what he wanted. She probably would have done whatever he'd wanted.

Instead she would have to do this alone. There was no alternative.

"My father died before I was born," Sakura whispered. "My mother raised me alone. She made it look so easy, and when I think about it, she was only two years older than me now when she had me."

"What do you think that means for you?" Himiko asked, as the kettle began to whistle faintly. She picked it up and began to pour.

"I don't know," Sakura said, looking miserably at the swirling yellow contents of her teacup. "I'm not sure I could bring myself to do it though. Not after what my mother went through. But then I don't think I was ever half as strong as she was…"

Himiko sipped her drink with dignity. "Motherhood tends to make people that way, regardless. You may find it suits you, Sakura."

"I doubt that," Sakura said with a tremble, still unable to see what might lay in her future. She'd done things in her life that could drive people mad. She'd taken lives, plunged her hands into decaying corpses to find secrets, and she'd come so close to death so many times by now that she'd lost count. And if she was not _strong_ enough now, how could she ever be strong enough to look after a child? "I don't know what to do," was all she could whisper.

"Yes, but I think you already decided long ago, whether you realise it or not. Why else would you have put it off for so long?"

Sakura pressed the moisture from her eyes. "Because I'm scared…" she said hoarsely.

"Yes, you are. But I think you'll come to the best decision that suits you. You're not a foolish girl, Sakura."

_I am_, she thought. _You don't know me._

"Take the rest of the afternoon off," Himiko told her, getting to her feet. "Enjoy your tea, have a nap, come down to dinner, and then catch up with your evening duties. If you still want to go to Ame tomorrow, I'll arrange it, but I want you to be sure that's what you want."

That made one last night to decide what to do. If Kakashi didn't contact her by tomorrow morning, and it looked increasingly likely that he wouldn't, she would have to deal with the decision alone. Sakura nodded in dull understanding, and after Himiko left she finally allowed herself to break down and sob over her cup of tea until she was too tired and empty to do anything but put her head down on the table and sleep. When Kaoru returned to wake her for dinner, she went through the motions like a drone. She ate, she cleared her place for the next servants, and then followed Aki, Yui and Kaoru down to the Crane wing to help with some of the last spring cleaning (the former two somewhat subdued around Sakura now, after having clearly been cut down to size by Himiko while Sakura slept). The guests were due to arrive by the weekend, so everything had to be perfectly clean and well maintained for their arrival.

And while the other girls dusted and changed the sheets for the beds, Sakura casually slipped a bug beneath the bed, hooking it to one of the springs while pretending to be tucking in the covering for the mattress. With no one any the wiser, she continued with her work. After replacing a vase of flowers with fresh orchids and going over every surface with yet another dust cloth, it was time for bed. All four girls retired wearily, getting undressed to wash and slowly settle down to sleep.

Yui was unusually quiet. This may have been because Aki and Kaoru now talked easily with Sakura, and having lost her one ally in the War Against Sakura, she was momentary thwarted. Sakura couldn't care less. Let the girl sulk. She would have to get over herself eventually.

As Sakura slept, for the first time she dreamt about her pregnancy. This perhaps just went to show how successfully she had managed to divorce herself from her condition so far for it never to have entered her subconscious dreams. In this case she dreamt about Kakashi too. He came to the Zuru estate and found her on her hands and knees, scrubbing the stones of the courtyard with a hand brush. He took her away back to Konoha, but halfway into the journey, Sakura remember with a jolt that she'd left her baby behind. She didn't know what it looked like, what gender it was, only that she needed to go back for it. But Kakashi wouldn't wait. It was him or the child…

The decision tore at her, and she woke before she could make it. Once again, it was a furry ginger body draped over her chest that she roused to.

"Dokko," she breathed, pushing him off so she could breathe. The cat thumped onto the mattress beside her and one of the other girls snorted in her sleep, but they all slept on regardless.

"Rumour has it you tried to run away today?" the cat whispered, intrigued. "Is that true?"

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"I suppose that's true."

"Have you found anything?"

"Nothing new," he admitted. "I tried to find out who the guests are, but no one talks about them. It's very infuriating."

"Tell me about it," Sakura sighed. "I've been wanting to write a report to Tsunade about the guests, but I'm waiting till I get some information on them. But it's like people don't want to talk about them, and I can't push my luck…"

"How are you going to send a report?"

"There's always the emergency radio, but that wouldn't be safe to use undercover." Sakura whispered. "I'll figure something out. I just wonder how Tsunade is doing…I hope she hasn't been driven to paranoid madness by all those spy rumours."

"Spies?" Dokko asked.

"The syndicate has spies in Konoha by all accounts," she told him. "If these visitors are connected, do you think it would be too much to hope that we get some names of a few moles?"

"Yes."

"Hm. We have to try our best though."

"Indeed. Stroke me, please."

Sakura settled her head down and slowly allowed her fingers to run over the rippling fur of her feline summon. He purred quietly, which was possibly the most comforting, enjoyable noise Sakura had heard in this room at night since her arrival. She was close to falling asleep when the cat's claws prickled her warningly through her sleeve.

"Don't go to sleep just yet," he said. "I was saving the best news for last."

"Hm?" she sighed.

"You have a job to do in about two hours."

"Job?" she repeated tiredly. "It's the middle of the night… I don't have any more duties."

"My mistake. I just thought you might be interested, since you _did_ ask me to tell you when there was news from Konoha," Dokko said, yawning.

Sakura almost sat up, stopped only by Dokko's considerable weight on her chest. It was like someone had taken a syringe full of anxiety and relief and fear and excitement and injected it directly into her heart, making it leap from a steady resting beat to a galloping thunder. "Kakashi contacted you?" she whispered, hardly daring to believe it. Her first thought was to be glad he was alive after all. Her second thought was terror at what she knew would come next.

"I was summoned by a pug who said he spoke for Kakashi," Dokko whispered, shuddering in distaste. "Horrible, inbred little creatures. He looked like he'd been running into walls since the day he was born. That disgusting mouth and all those teeth… and it was like he didn't even remember that he'd chased me up a tree that one time."

"What did you say to him?" Sakura asked.

"What you told me to say. I gave him the radio frequency, the codenames, and chose a time – two hours from now, and he said he'd pass on the message. If he's even remotely useful, his master would have gotten it by now."

In two hours she would finally hear Kakashi's voice.

Sakura's fingers trembled slightly as she hand compulsively began stroking Dokko's back. The cat flattened closer to her chest, either sensing her fretfulness or just not liking the way she was petting his fur. For days and weeks now she had been rehearsing what she would say in her head, and _still_ she couldn't think of a satisfactory well to tell Kakashi the truth.

She would definitely start off with "Hello." That was a given.

Kakashi was always pretty tepid over radio, so whether he would be pleased to hear her voice or not, he would answer the same way with a cool, "Hello." Maybe he would go on to immediately ask what she needed to talk to him about, but it was more likely there would be nothing but an expectant silence on his end that would be awkward and lengthy depending on how badly Sakura's nerves fared.

It would be jarring and difficult, but she had to get the words out. She had to say. "Kakashi," or "Sensei," and then, "I've needed to talk to you for some time. You left Konoha before I had the chance, and I tried to wait for your return, but in the end I saw an opportunity to take myself out of the village for a long time, and I took it. I took it because I needed to prepare for the possibility that… I might really have to go through with this."

And he would say, predictably, "Go through with what, Sakura?" or something like that.

And she would then have to say, "This pregnancy, Kakashi," or "Sensei." And in case he made any earnest yet insulting inquiry about who the father was, she would have to say, "It's yours/your fault."

After that, she had no idea what he would say, and so had no idea what she would say either. It all hinged on Kakashi's reaction. She knew he wouldn't be pleased, but would he be angry? Speechless? Would he blame her? Would he blame herself? Would he be cold and logical and tell her to get rid of it? Or would he try and be a sensitive oaf and tell her that she should do whatever she felt was right?

She at least realised deep in her heart that this was just going to be a formality. Whether she kept it or not, she honestly doubted Kakashi would want to involve himself too much. He had a right to know, and he might appreciate that she'd wanted to include him, but given the cold nature of their relationship since that mission to Jonan he couldn't possibly want anything to do with her or a potential child.

But what did it matter. If she discussed things with Kakashi tonight, she'd probably wind up going to Amegakure tomorrow and no more would be said about it ever again.

Dokko gave a quiet _mrowl_ of disapproval - her stroking was getting quite rough. "Someone's coming," he warned, and then he was gone, just another shadow melting into the other shadows. Sakura suspected if it was just an excuse to escape until she heard movement in the corridor outside.

Lights switched on, shining through gaps in the sliding doors and hurried footsteps could be heard on the squeaky floorboards. A moment later, someone burst in.

"Get up!" Himiko called to them, turning on the main light to make every girl in the room hiss and hide their faces. "Quickly! Get up and get dressed."

"Wha…?" Kaoru yawned.

"Hym?" Aki grunted.

"Bother," Yui muttered.

Sakura sat up, pretending to be more asleep than she actually was. "What's going on?" she asked Himiko.

"The guests have arrived early." she gave an annoyed shake of the head. "_Very_ inconsiderate. Now hurry and dress, you're needed in the foyer."

Himiko rushed on ahead to rouse other sleeping servants as the girls staggered out of bed and pulled on their clothes and brushed their hair. There was no time for make-up and washing. All they had time for was pinning up their hair as they jogged down the corridor to the foyer.

Other servants were gathered there, mostly men. Lights danced in the courtyard and loud, pleasant voices carried into the entrance hall where the four girls quickly arranged themselves in a suitable position.

Lord Zuru entered, looking half asleep but as indifferent as a complacent man with a lot of power could. Lady Zuru probably should have been there as well, only Sakura had heard from Himiko that it took the woman no less than two hours to dress before she thought herself fit enough to leave her bedroom. Instead, Zuru was accompanied by his son and heir, Toshio.

As always, Sakura's skin prickled unpleasantly at the sight of him, but he didn't deign to look in her direction. He was done with her. He had probably forgotten she existed now.

"Typical," she heard the older Zuru mutter under his breath. "Early and _still _they manage to turn up late."

"I wonder what excuse it will be this time," Toshio murmured back. "That Karasu is always full of them."

People were moving across the courtyard. Sakura heard their boots on the cobbles. They alighted the steps and a man entered the doorway.

Lord Zuru moved forward. "Hatake-sama!"

Sakura's heart stopped.

_Kakashi!_

She only glimpsed him for a moment before she had to sink into a deep bow alongside the other girls and servants, but there was no mistaking the masked face, the indolent eyes and the untameable shag of white hair. He was wearing strange clothes of black and grey, but Sakura _knew _it was him.

Except something was wrong…

As she straightened, Sakura's eyes fixed on the man once more and she immediately realised her mistake. This man had both his eyes, and his hair was too long, and… and it wasn't Kakashi at all.

"Your place is still as hard to find as ever, Zuru," he answered Zuru, and his voice as measured as her superior's, though just a touch deeper. "My poor cousins have blisters."

"Then I hope you enjoy the comforts and luxuries of our humble estate. Your cousins are welcome to whatever they need to ease their sore feet." Lord Zuru replied. "As always, it is an honour and a pleasure to host the Great Hatake clan."

_Hatake clan_…

Later, Sakura would blame it on the pregnancy, but even so it was probably a combination of low blood pressure at being forced up in the middle of the night and shock at seeing a family that was supposed to be long dead. The entrance hall and everyone in it seemed to spin up and away into darkness.

The last thing Sakura heard was the thud of her own body hitting the floor. Then it was just deep, dreamless darkness.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The House of Crows_


	13. The House of Crows

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twelve: The House of Crows

* * *

_But I fear, I have nothing to give._

_I have so much to loose here in this lonely place._

* * *

The communications headquarters was at the cutting edge of Konoha's technological front, but what it basically came down to was a tree house at the very top of the Hokage's mountain. It consisted of one circular room wrapped around the trunk of one of the oldest and largest trees in the area and a precarious staircase leading up to its trapdoor entrance. All perfectly stable… except in high winds like tonight, it did tend to rock a bit.

This didn't seem to trouble any of the regular operators sitting in there with their consoles of little buttons and dials and flashing lights. Some of them would be scouring the airwaves for enemy transmissions, ready hijack channels and decode information. Others would be listening for news from field agents. A growing number of them would also now be listening for unsanctioned _outgoing_ messages from Konoha in the hopes that Syndicate spies could be caught, their transmissions blocked, and their plans disseminated.

Kakashi threw himself down in the chair of an unoccupied terminal and snapped a pair of headphones over his ears. He had to take a moment to familiarise himself with the array of controls before him, since it had been at least five years since he'd last sat in this room, but he at least remembered how to tune into certain frequencies (and he had the precise one he needed jotted down on a piece of paper crumpled in his hand) and also how to adjust the volume.

A pair of chain mail clad breasts descended into view. "Who gave you permission to come up here?" Anko demanded, leering at him over the top of the console he was sitting at.

"Hm?" Kakashi pretended he couldn't hear her through the headphones. Her response was to pluck one off his ear.

"My gaffe, Hatake, my rules. What are you up to?" she asked, and then let the headphones go to snap against his head.

Ears ringing just a tad, Kakashi shrugged. "Just trying to contact a friend," he said, unable to completely suppress the smile on his face. He'd been smiling like this since Pakkun had returned that evening with all the information he needed to contact Sakura, and it was beginning to scare people.

Like Anko, who looked at him as if he could be having some kind of stroke. "Someone you know in the field right now?" she asked carefully.

"In a field, in a town, in a barn… I haven't a clue." He snapped over a few switches and twiddled the biggest dial until the digits matched the one on the paper. This was the number Pakkun had given him. Nothing but a constantly shifting blare of static came from the headphones, but that was ok. One glance at the clock on the wall told him he was five minutes early.

For once.

"Alright, just don't break my shit or I'll make you pay for it," Anko warned casually as she headed back to pester the regular operators.

Kakashi put his feet up on the edge of the console and began periodically pressing down on the talk button. "Wild Orchid, this is Homebase, over."

There was no response, it wasn't their agreed time yet but there was always a chance she would get on the line a little early. Kakashi waited another minute before repeating the call to the same effect, trying to ignore how the walls of this place creaked so odiously. The wheeled chair on the next console over began to slide across the floor, apparently under its own power. _Hm,_ Kakashi thought, gripping the edge of the desktop a little more tightly. The room was tilting again. How could Anko enjoy shifts in a place like this?

The clock struck two and Kakashi turned his attention away from the dark window to concentrate on the monotonous static in his ear. Sakura was always on time for anything and everything. Any minute now he would hear her clear voice breaking over the airwaves. Kakashi began pressing the talk button more frequently. "Wild Orchid, this is Homebase. Can you hear me? Over."

He wasn't worried. Not until five minutes passed. And then ten. By the quarter of an hour mark, he was biting the tip of his thumb through his mask and tapping the talk button impatiently.

Absolutely no response… he was talking to dead air.

The smile he'd been wearing all night had finally slipped. Anko noticed his exasperation and drifted back over. "Trouble?" she purred.

"I'm not getting through," he told her tersely.

"Well, for a start you can take your feet off my transceiver. Do you even have the right frequency band?"

"Of course I do."

Anko confiscated the headset anyway to fiddle with the controls. She sent a few test calls out on a few different settings, and Kakashi waited, wondering if he really had made an oversight. It _had _been a while since he'd worked anything other than short-range radios in the field . But after a few minutes even Anko had to admit there was no one out there. "Where's this chick supposed to be anyway?"

How did she know it was a 'chick' at all? Kakashi wondered if there was something about his personality that indicated he wouldn't arrange private transmission like this for another man. In that case… he'd abstain from mentioning it was Sakura. Anko would almost certainly get the wrong idea. "She's in the rain country," he said.

"Eh. Storms can interfere with the signals sometimes," she said thoughtfully, "And if she's anywhere near Ame, they might be jamming channels deliberately too. That's not a good place for radio…"

"It's not a good place, period," Kakashi muttered, his fist propped against his cheek.

"Is she in danger?" Anko asked, cocking her head. "Or are you just pissed you're not getting any phone sex tonight?"

"_You_ have a one-track mind."

"Says the pot," she snorted. "Either way, is there anything we should be worrying about? Tsunade-sama isn't going to be over the moon if _another_ field agent's gone missing."

"I don't think it's that…" he said. Their summons had communicated only a few hours ago so she'd been fine then, though he knew better than anyone that when things went wrong, everything could changed in a matter of seconds. Kakashi had no idea what had happened that Sakura had failed to check in. He didn't want to think something had happened to her, and there were plenty of other explanations. She may have been unable to make the agreed time if she didn't have the opportunity to find a secluded spot. Then there was also the chance that she may have just plain changed her mind about wanting to speak to him.

The room creaked and tipped again. Kakashi's eyebrows knitted together obstinately. "I'll wait a while longer," he declared, taking back the headset.

He'd wait all night if he had to.

* * *

The only part of Dokko's body that moved was his quietly twitching tail. He hunched low beneath the hydrangea bush, peeping through the leaves at the unsuspecting field mouse that scurried back and forth through the strawberry plants, sampling one and then another. It was gradually winding itself close to Dokko's hiding place. Only a few more seconds. The cat licked his lips. Field mice were always a tasty little midnight snack. The tails were a bit tough, but he could always give it to Sakura as a present.

There!

The mouse had stopped to sniff a large strawberry only three feet away. Dokko's muscles bunched. He calculated the distance and the exact strength he needed to jump in order to land directly on that tasty little morsel. Then, without a moment's more hesitation, he leapt –

Smoke clouded his vision, his whole body tugged sideways and suddenly it was not a mouse between his paws, but someone's foot. No longer was he outdoors in the vegetable garden, but indoors in what seemed to be a bathroom. He looked up at Sakura.

"You owe me a mouse," he told her.

She didn't know what he was talking about. And even though she was a human, he noticed she looked extremely odd tonight. Her face was pale, her eyes were slightly too glazed, and when she spoke her voice was tight and hoarse. "Has Kakashi contacted you again?" she asked him urgently.

She's summoned him to ask _that?_ "No," he drawled, his tail swishing irritably now. "Why?"

"I… I missed the radio appointment we had."

"That was clever," Dokko observed.

"So he hasn't contacted you since then?" she asked again in the same desperate tone.

"No."

"Good… I'm glad."

Dokko's tail stopped. "Wait, what?"

"If Kakashi contacts you again… don't say anything. Don't tell him about me or the mission or where we are. It's important, Dokko, he _cannot_ know anything."

"Something happened?" he asked.

"Everything's changed, Dokko," she whispered.

* * *

Sakura was in terrible disgrace. As a lower rank servant, she had no place announcing her existence to the Family or their guests, let alone keeling over in the middle of a welcome committee. She had no idea how her employers had reacted to her sudden lack of consciousness; she was only later vaguely aware that two strong men had picked her up and carried her out of sight like a piece of unsightly furniture.

When she recovered, Himiko gravely told her that Lord Zuru had demanded she be completely dropped from any roster duties that would involve her interacting with the family or their guests.

"You're lucky he didn't fire you," Himiko told her. "I know it's not your fault, but you've embarrassed him dreadfully."

This was possibly one of the worst things that could happen to an undercover agent – to screw up so badly she was then forbidden from the very duties she needed a stake in. She might as well have gone right back home that very moment, if she hadn't had her bug and Dokko to aid her still.

But it wasn't her shameful collapse that rattled her the most.

She was now living beneath the same roof as the _Hatake clan_. These were people who, by all rights, shouldn't have existed. After all, she had known a Hatake for the last eight years of her life, and for the last two had been pretty damn close to him. Yet he'd never mentioned family. In fact, he had gone so far as to say he had _no_ family whatsoever. Everyone he loved and cared about were extinct; he was the last of his kind.

Had he been as much in the dark about these people as her? Or had it all been a lie...?

"You have to tell the Hokage," Dokko whispered to her. They sat together in one of the closets of the upper floor looking down through the dusty window at the courtyard below. Several men she'd never seen before lingered there, talking to the Zuru household guards and servants, laughing and joking, showing and comparing their weapons. None of the men down there wore masks, and not all of them had pale, platinum hair – not even most of them. The majority of the clan seemed to be composed of black haired individuals, and they wore a generic black and grey uniform that made it hard to distinguish their origin.

Sakura guessed Aki was one of them.

"Aki was a Hatake…" she whispered, more to herself than the cat. "All this time, I've been sleeping in a room with one of Kakashi's relatives."

Dokko's tail twitched angrily.

"He thinks he's alone. Wait till he finds out-"

"Don't be a fool!" the cat hissed. "You're letting your personal bias rule your head! This clan is bad news, and one of them is in your village. You _need_ to tell the Hokage."

"I _know_, Kakashi!" Sakura snapped back. "He has no connection to these people. And we don't even know if they have anything to do with the Syndicate anyway!"

"If you're so sure they're unrelated to the syndicate, then there's nothing to stop you reporting them back to the Hokage."

Sakura bit her lip. "It'll only put him under suspicion."

"With good reason."

"_No._ Even if this is the Syndicate, he can't be held accountable for who he happens to be related to. There is no one more loyal to Konoha than Kakashi. There is no way I'm going to implicate him."

"You don't have a choice," Dokko insisted. "You can't withhold vital information during a war for the sake of one person's good name."

"I know," Sakura said pleadingly, sucking on the tips of her hair. "I know that."

"And you can't be without doubt yourself if you told me not to speak to his summon anymore," Dokko went on. "You know as well as I do that if he's in on this, he will know this is a clan safehouse and would expose you as a spy in an instant if he knew you were here."

"Just because I'm playing it safe, doesn't mean I believe it," Sakura ground out. "I don't think for a second there's even a chance he could be a spy."

"Then tell-"

"Not until we've confirmed this clan is really the Syndicate," she said finally. "I won't send hasty, incomplete information that would do more harm than good either way."

It was a reasonable enough course of action, so Dokko began cleaning his whiskers as if he didn't care. But Sakura couldn't pretend to herself that she was delaying a message to Tsunade out of impartial, professional judgement. In truth, she just couldn't accept even the _possibility_ that Kakashi knew about his own clan. That would mean he'd lied to her. And that in turn would mean all sorts of other things.

Sakura's hand shifted restlessly to her belly, hidden under layers of yukata and apron.

She couldn't accept such nonsense.

"I have to get back to work," she whispered, and left the cat on the windowsill to return to her next scheduled duty: thinning carrots with Aki.

For a long time the girls worked and didn't speak. Even if Aki had decided Yui's dislike of Sakura was not her own, it was still difficult to know what to say. Perhaps the problem was actually Sakura. Her head was so full of confusion and questions and fears that she had to concentrate solely on plucking out the weakest seedlings or else she would sit down in the trench and start crying her eyes out.

Besides which, she knew she had to play her interest in the new visitors cool. Too many questions might ring some alarm bells. She'd already made an appalling job of blending into the wallpaper last night when she'd fainted, and the last thing she needed now was to arouse suspicions by being too nosy.

But perhaps there was one reasonable opening into conversation that Sakura could use without seeming too interested in things that didn't concern her.

"Aki," she said slowly, as wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "You know when you said you had an uncle called Karasu…"

"Yes," the girl responded evenly, her back turned.

"Was that him last night? The one with the white hair?"

"Yes," Aki said. "But I suppose he's more like my cousin two or three times removed or something, but me and my sisters always called him 'uncle'. And he's not really called Karasu; that's just his nickname."

"His nickname?"

"He's a ninja. A lot of the best ones have earned nicknames. You've probably heard of a few… the Turuka Tiger, the Yellow Flash, the Diminutive Toad, the White Fang. My uncle is the White Crow, after the clan. Sometimes people call us the House of Crows."

"Are you a ninja then?" Sakura asked, disguising her trepidation. Another thing she didn't need was a second kunoichi in the bedroom.

"No… I'm from one of the branch families," Aki said with an even enough voice, but Sakura knew there was some bitterness there. "Karasu placed me here, because there's not much else to do with me."

"Why here?"

"Because the Zuru family and the Hatake clan have always been good friends," she said hollowly, as if she'd been part of some gift exchange.

Well, that hadn't exactly been what Sakura wanted to know, but she hadn't expected Aki to say anything as incriminating as "my family are crooks and this is their safe house". Sakura didn't want to hear that anyway. She would rather learn the Hatake clan was here for a nice little holiday and nothing more. Then she could report back with a clear conscience and a light heart.

But Aki was awfully grim and tight-lipped about her relatives. And when Sakura tactfully broached the subject with others, she was quickly discouraged from asking further questions.

For instance, when she asked Himiko, "Why do you think they're visiting?"

Himiko replied, "Business, as usual. But it's not for us to know or understand. Help me fold this sheet."

Kaoru was even less helpful. "Why are they here? Gosh… they do get waited on rather nicely here. If I was an elite ninja clan, I'd mooch off my rich friends too."

As the days wore on, Sakura grew increasingly frustrated. Her work was suddenly limited to working in the undercroft or the vegetable patch outside the kitchen, leaving her completely cut off from any area where she might come across these infamous guests. She didn't see them, she didn't hear them, although sometimes she was dragged out in the early morning to clean up one of the large entertainment rooms that was littered with all the signs of a party from the night before. Aside from this and the arrival of a few more hired cooks from Ame to take care of the rising demand for food, Sakura might never have known forty or so guests had suddenly taken up residence in the estate.

It was all the more infuriating when the bug she had planted in the master guestroom proved itself useless, recording no significant sound that Sakura had to conclude it was either malfunctioning or had already been rooted out. Dokko was having no luck getting near any member of the clan, as they all had a deep distaste for cats, not unlike her own Hatake. The other members of the staff were not interested in the who or the what or the why of the Hatake clan, and quite deliberately so. There was definitely the insinuation that only fools stuck their nose into business like theirs, and it was the job of a good servant not to ask questions.

That was ok. Sakura wasn't a particularly good servant anyway.

But between Dokko's nagging that she needed to send a report back to Konoha, and Sakura's deepening fears about the purpose of this clan's visit at such a sensitive time, she felt compelled to act. Every evening she seethed with frustration that her fellow maids were waiting on the family and their guests and hearing their conversations. Sakura couldn't ask them directly what had been said without being treated to suspicion, so her only choice was to _be _there, waiting on her targets, and hearing their conversation for herself.

And if they weren't going to let her, she would have to _make them let her_.

It wasn't something Sakura particularly wanted to do, or felt proud about doing. But as she lifted a few bottles of clear liquid from a hidden compartment in her backpack, she justified it as being for the sake of her mission. She needed to do this, and it wasn't liked she planned any _real_ harm.

Alone in the bedroom, Sakura quickly mixed two drops from the green bottle in the palm of her hand with a little blot of powder from a sealed white packet. The resulting paste was clear and oozing, and before the other girls returned for their afternoon tea, Sakura took care to dab the bottom of two of the arranged teacups with the prepared formula. Then she washed her own hands thoroughly, selected a new teacup of her own and waited.

Back from cleaning the bathhouse, the other three girls sipped their tea with delight and relaxed upon the porch with Sakura.

"You should have seen it, Sakura," Kaoru said, wrinkling her nose. "Our guests are very dirty men…"

"They all go training next to the lake, and the _mud_ they bring back just for us," Aki agreed. "The girls are cleaner."

"Girls?" Sakura asked. So far she hadn't heard of any female visitors.

"You haven't seen them? Only the kunoichi from the upper house are visiting," Aki told her. "They make Lady Zuru look like a shambling old bag lady, and they can gut you in sixty-seven different ways."

"I'd love to be a kunoichi," Kaoru murmured. "It's so… romantic."

"They sure complain a lot though," Yui grumbled. "Nothing is good enough for them."

"They're from the upper house, so what do you expect?" Aki pointed out. "They may be deadly, but they're still spoilt."

Kaoru was still dreaming. "If I was a kunoichi, I'd answer to no one but myself! People always need someone to fight for them, so I'd never be out of work, but I wouldn't have to take crap from anyone either, because people would respect you. No man would ever dare touch me, and I know plenty who could do with being gutted sixty seven ways."

It was clear exactly which man she felt deserved such a fate, as Sakura had also spent a great deal of time imagining how to gut him a hundred and twenty-four ways. Yui also seemed to catch on and she shot a glare at the other girl. "Shut up, Kaoru."

With a shrug, Kaoru went back to sipping her tea and the subject moved to more neutral territory. Sakura had no idea which two had picked up the contaminated cups, and if there was any justice in the world, Yui would be one of them. Only time would tell.

For the rest of the day, Sakura watched the clock anxiously. Time for the evening meal approached, and the servants began making the usual preparations. Sakura was hauled in to peel more spuds in the corner of the kitchen where she'd be the least nuisance to anyone. Right about now, Himiko and the other girls would be serving the first drinks to the family.

And with any luck…

"Hey. You."

Sakura looked up from her thirteenth potato to see Yui hanging in the doorway, watching her with the same old unfriendly yet deceptively empty expression. She looked remarkably healthy, and in that moment Sakura knew it had been Aki and Kaoru to pick up the contaminated teacups. _Damn._ "Yes?"

"Himiko wants you. Wash your hands and lose the apron."

Sakura did just that and followed the taller pink-haired girl away through the corridors of the undercroft reserved for servants, and out into the hallways reserved for family. It was the first time in days Sakura had been allowed out this way.

In the antechamber connecting to the dining room, Himiko was waiting. She looked hassled, but still as persistently pleasant as Yui was unpleasant. "Tragedy has struck, girls," she said as she saw Sakura. "Kaoru and Aki have taken ill, poor things, and we're understaffed. I'm afraid you'll have to help out today, Sakura."

Finally. Sakura's heart gave a restrained thump of triumph. Then she remembered that she had absolutely no experience whatsoever of attending a meal and no idea what was expected of her. As always, the fatal flaw in her plan always became apparent far too late.

"I realise this is short notice, dear," Himiko whispered to her. "Just do as Yui does. There's a good girl."

Mirroring Yui in such a way that would make even Copy Ninja Kakashi proud, Sakura began picking up the procedure, which was this:

Kitchen staff brought food and drinks on trolleys from the kitchen through to the antechamber. The maid serving, had to pick up a tray, walk to the doors, kneel down, slide the doors open, step through, kneel down, slide the door shut after them, stand up and locate the appropriate receiver of the food, kneel down, silently place the food and pour the drink, stand up, retreat to one side of the door, kneel down, and then spend the rest of the meal with eyes averted to the floor until someone called for her attention.

Once again, Sakura was struck by the thought that her typical work wasn't nearly as complicated or tedious as this. And as she entered the room with Yui, she wasn't prepared for how weak kneed she was already.

It was probably the sight of Karasu. Sakura tried not to look at him, but the uncanny resemblance to Kakashi was still startling. He even sat like him, slightly slouched and perfectly relaxed as if this was _his _home. By contrast, Lord Zuru looked far more tense and uncomfortable at the other end of the table. Between the two men sat Lady Zuru, Toshio, the twins, several fair-haired women of varying ages, and several more dark-haired men. Everyone was talking to someone else, and it was difficult to immediately catch anything that was said. But Sakura didn't feel anything of any importance was being mentioned. And at the end of the table, Hatake Karasu was quiet. Above all else, it was _him_ who Sakura wanted to hear speak.

The most important diners were always served first. While Lord Zuru's personal retainer served him, Himiko served Lazy Zuru, and Yui immediately jumped at the chance to serve Toshio before Sakura could even think about it. This left Sakura to approach Karasu with her tray of food. She watched the other servants to quickly train herself as to the proper etiquette, then she quietly sidled up to the head of the Hatake clan and knelt down.

Initially he didn't acknowledge her presence. She was a servant after all, and perfectly invisible because of it. But when she reached out with her bottle of sake, his hand suddenly moved to cover the top of his cup pointedly. He glanced sideways at her and for a moment Sakura couldn't tell him apart from her own sensei.

"I know who you are," he said, his voice breaking through the nearby chatter and making several heads turn their way.

Sakura froze in horror.

Karasu's eyes narrowed and then he pointed an offhand finger at her. "You're the girl who fainted, right?"

Sniggers broke out along the table along the Hatake end. At the Zuru end, the faces were stony and embarrassed, as was Sakura's for that matter. She retreated quickly to the wall, her face as red as a berry.

"Better keep that one, Zuru. She's adorable." Karasu told his host.

"I'll bear that in mind," Zuru replied, looking much less amused at the reminder of Sakura's antics.

"In my opinion," began one of the fair-haired ladies to Karasu's right, "this preoccupation with surrounding oneself with pretty little women is dull and overindulgent."

"Reika," Karasu rebuked softly. "You _are_ a pretty little woman, dull and overindulged."

She struck a pout. Sakura knew she had to be older than Sakura, but from the way she behaved she came across as around the same age as the twins. But that name… _Reika_… Reika and Karasu. She'd heard them together before, hadn't she? She'd _read_ them.

A queasiness ten times worse than morning sickness began to grip her stomach. _Don't you dare throw up,_ she warned herself. After fainting last night, vomiting in front of everyone would definitely get her fired.

"The rainy season will be coming soon, Hatake-sama," Zuru began in a grave rumble. "if you intend to stay beyond the month, you will have difficulty with the jungle. Ame's rainforest can be extremely hostile, even to experienced travellers. Once the rivers burst their banks, the roads will disappear."

"Your concern is touching, but our plans cannot be altered." Karasu lowered his mask to begin eating, and Sakura dared to glance up at him,

In a way the sight of his face was reassuring. Without the mask, the difference between him and Kakashi was more pronounced, as while their faces held typical familial similarity, there was a world of difference. They might both have shared the same irregular features, but for some indefinable reason, where Kakashi's face was charming, Karasu's was not. But it was unfair to describe him as ugly, as he wasn't really, and perhaps it was only because Sakura was biased that she found Kakashi the more attractive Hatake.

She was carrying his child after all.

"Another of your Iwa messengers arrived today," Zuru continued. "I hope this isn't going to be a regular thing.

Each clan member studiously looked to Karasu who gave Zuru a measured look. "Is there a problem?" he asked quietly.

"You know I am perfectly happy giving you financial buoyancy during harder times, but no one ever said anything about a _war_…"

Karasu's gaze flicked to the gathered servants around the edge of the room. Even if Zuru was a man who thought servants were ignorant, silent pieces of scenery, Karasu seemed to know that anyone with ears and a voice was not to be trusted. "War is as life and death. Every great civilisation rises out of it, and falls back into it in the end. It is necessary to this world, and I find nothing wrong about having a hand in it."

Sakura closed her eyes. _Mercenaries_.

"Konoha's time is up. It has reigned too long and become old, obese and complacent. It's legacy has all but destroyed clans like mine, and once it's gone a new power struggle will commence and you and I will _both_ profit, Zuru. Once the balance of power is upset there's always work for people like myself."

Zuru glared. "Iwa is not an ally I'd trust."

"With good reason. Fortunately, they are no more my ally than Konoha."

It was too much to hope… perhaps there _was_ no connection between this clan the syndicate in the employ of Iwa?

"What about you, Toshio?" Karasu turned to the young lord. "Would you raise a sword and have a hand in the birth of a new civilisation?"

Toshio, nettled at being addressed on a first name basis, just shrugged.

"Sweet. A man after your heart," Karasu directed once again at Zuru. "Though I suppose fence-sitting has its advantages. You and your family have been sitting here well over three hundred years, just accumulating wealth as your land rises in value. Really, what need is there for honest work with a situation like yours?"

Zuru scoffed. "Honest work? Is that what you call blackmail and theft and murder for hire these days?"

Karasu's glass of water struck the table a little harder than necessary. With his gaze levelled at his plate, he said, "You make it sound so sordid. And this is not an appropriate subject of conversation for-"

"Your ring of crooks and thieves may seem an attractive tool for Iwa right now, but once you help them gain power, they'll only turn on you."

Karasu smiled. "I'm counting on it. On that day, they'll find to their dismay just how deep the roots of the Syndicate run in their own village. Besides, there's no point removing one great power only to have another move into its place."

_Shit._ Dokko was right, and she'd known it all along. She'd been kidding herself to think that the arrival of a powerful ninja clan was just a pure coincidence. There was no way she could deny this was the Syndicate now. These were the very people Konoha was searching for. The very people who held the key to defeating Konoha… or defeating Iwa.

And they were the Hatake clan.

Perhaps which way the war would now go depended on Sakura almost entirely at this point. If she reported back, Konoha would gain the advantage. If the Syndicate bosses could be identified and tracked down and neutralised, the war odds would be stacked favourably for Konoha. But if Sakura sat on this information…?

"You seem awfully confident that Konoha will fall," Lady Zuru finally spoke in her high, soft voice. "Considering their record in warfare so far, isn't that perhaps a little too self-assured?"

"The roots of the Syndicate run deep in Konoha too. Perhaps even deeper than in Iwa," Karasu shrugged. "Right now, their Hokage is more afraid of us than she is of Iwa."

This produced even more pleased laughter from the Hatake end of the table.

Perhaps this line of conversation might have continued if the twins had not begun asking if they could have some sake. The talk turned to lighter, less political subjects and gradually the tension around the table eased, probably due to the fact that both Zuru and Karasu leant back, shut up and said not another word for the rest of the meal. Sakura watched the white haired Hatake from the corner of her eye. So like Kakashi. When he had nothing to say, he really had nothing to say. He didn't waste his breathe on mundane small talk.

Dessert followed the dinner, and then the servants were dismissed. With aching knees, Sakura immediately set off in the direction of the bedroom, willing herself not to cry on the way. She still didn't know if it was the pregnancy which made her so prone to weeping, or the fact that she had a lot more to weep about than usual.

In the bedroom she found poor Aki and Kaoru huddling on their futons, shivering and sweating with a fever. Sakura paused only for a few minutes to knock together a mild remedy that would lessen their symptoms, but either way, by morning they would be right as rain. Sakura refreshed their cold wet towels on their foreheads, and then went to her cupboard to fetch a scroll from the secret compartment of her backpack.

Taking care not to be seen, she slipped out onto the veranda and across the grass to the edge of the bamboo forest. She trod carefully, looking around her at all times to makes sure she was alone as she headed deeper into the forest until she could no longer see the house, and the house could no longer see her. Only then did she feel safe enough to bite the tip of her thumb and drag the welling tip down the length of the scroll's contents.

Dokko appeared with a flop and a yawn. "Good evening," he said. "It smells like rain."

"It's the rain country," Sakura said distractedly as she reached into her yukata and withdrew a small notebook and a pen she kept on her at all times to remind her of her errands. "I need you to fetch Nya."

"Nya?" Dokko purred. "What do you need with her?"

"I need to send a message to Konoha," Sakura said, scribbling away at her notebook. "I can't send a letter they won't read, and the aviary is strictly monitored, so they'd notice a missing bird. I'd use you, but I need you here and Nya is faster anyway."

Dokko made a satisfied sound. "Ah. You've seen sense at last."

"Don't gloat. Do you think I should be happy that as a result of me sending this message, my sensei could be locked up for treason? He might even be tortured."

"Are you so sure that won't be justified?"

"_Yes."_ Sakura replied emphatically. "Now please bring Nya."

The cat gathered himself. "Just a moment," he sighed, and in a heartbeat he disappeared like a breath on the wind.

Sakura looked around, aware of how alone she was. She hadn't noticed the wind picking up, and now it seemed especially callous, shaking the tops of the bamboo trees hard enough to make the stalks around her sway. There was movement everywhere, but Sakura's keen eyes didn't pick up any Zuru guards.

Or worse; Hatake Syndicate members.

There was a pop and Dokko reappeared before her. A moment later a smaller, slimmer cat sprang into existence beside him.

"Sakura, Sakura, Sakura!" it meowed in a sing-song voice as it bolted forward to make furious furry acquaintance with her ankles. She was only a young cat, calico and mostly white, and her language skills were only just budding. She knew a smattering of human phrases, and her favourite word was Sakura's name. "Sakura, Sakura…"

"Nya," Sakura began seriously, tearing off the page of her notepad to begin folding it into a long, thin wedge. "I need you to take this message to Konoha."

"Message to Konoha. Nya taking message, yes."

"Oh, please. Speaking in third person," Dokko grumbled.

Nya turned to him happily. "Fatty, Fatty, Fatty."

Dokko glared baleful yellow eyes at her. Sakura took the opportunity to slip Nya's little pink collar off in order to insert her message carefully between the strip of leather and felt. This was so Nya wouldn't lose it, nor would anyone see it in passing. Normally Sakura would prefer to have her summons pass on her message orally, but besides Dokko, there wasn't any other cat Sakura trusted enough to convey it accurately. If she told Nya "the Hatake clan is leading the Syndicate", the message would probably arrive to Tsunade as "Nya likes biscuits, can Nya has biscuits?"

Sakura fixed the collar back around the little cat's neck and endured more affectionate head butting. "Remember, Nya. Take this to Konoha. Find Tsunade, the Hokage, and give this to her. No one else, do you understand."

"Old young lady leader. Yes." Nya agreed, reassuring Sakura that she knew who Tsunade was. Nya may be daft and incomprehensible sometimes, but she remembered her task well.

"As fast as you can, Nya. Go."

"Yes!"

They watched the small cat prance away through the trees, far faster than a typical cat, and within seconds she had bounced out of sight over a distant rise.

"Mad as a hatter that one," Dokko said grumpily.

"How long do you think she'll take?"

"Three days, maximum."

"That'll have to do," Sakura whispered, turning back in the direction of the house. "I just hope Tsunade-shishou doesn't do anything stu – ah – ow."

Sakura caught a bamboo trunk to steady herself with one hand as the other went to her stomach. A sharp pain lanced low in her belly, momentarily taking her breath away.

"What's wrong?" Dokko asked, trotting up beside her.

"I don't know…"

* * *

Nya had a mission! She was proud of her reputation as the fastest of the cat clan, and her talent served her well. She could outrun a horse and never tire, even if she did get distracted by the occasional butterfly along the way. And for the record, butterflies didn't taste nearly as good as their name promised.

The little cat danced through the rainforests and valleys of the western rain country before streaking across the flatter, grassy planes of the fire country. The sun set twice before the hills around Konoha came into view, and soon after that she was past the gates and skipping down busy streets.

Admittedly, she was a little tired and hungry now, and these were the first humans she'd seen in a while, so she sat down on a sunny wall along the main street, accepting the odd stroke and ear scratch from friendly passers-by, and any snack they wished to share with her. Everyone liked cats. Nya felt this was because cats were, in general, just awesome.

Except not everyone liked cats.

As Nya stood and stretched, ready to proceed to her destination feeling fully refreshed, a hand reached out to grab her by the scruff of the neck before she could even think about leaping away.

"No! Down now!" she yowled, dangling helplessly.

Kakashi observed the cat in his hand dispassionately. "You're Sakura's nekonin."

"Dog-man be releasing Nya now!"

"What would you be doing here?"

The cat said a very rude word (which Sakura probably didn't realise she'd taught) and continued to struggle. "Message not being for you!"

"Message?"

"No, no message!"

Kakashi looked the squirming little cat over for a moment before examining its collar. Judging by the increased struggles, this was what it didn't want Kakashi to find, so he slipped the pink strap off its head and unceremoniously dropped the animal on the ground.

Naturally landing on all fours, Nya immediately turned to spit, hiss and swear at the tall man in a unintelligible vocal rush. Kakashi ignored her as he located the strip of paper slipped inside the collar. "Don't worry," he told the cat with a smile. "I'll return it in a moment, but you can't blame a guy for being curious about a vanishing subordinate especially when her own summons seem to be avoiding me like the plague…"

He trailed off as he unfolded the paper and began to read. Nya went silent, hunching back against the wall as his smile faded and his body stilled. For a moment his eye closed and his head lowered as if suddenly beset with a headache, but when he lifted it again his gaze was clearer than it had been a moment ago. The note flapped in his hand, stirred by the passing breeze while Kakashi stared at it a little longer… then his eye snapped back on Nya, who hissed and shrank back again, prepared to fight or flee.

"So she's at the Zuru estate of all places?" He put a hand to his head and let out a soft, utterly humourless laugh. "Huh."

"Give message back!" Nya demanded.

"Get out of here," he told her. When she didn't react, he grabbed for her, snagging the little feline body in his fist. The cat yowled, loud enough for people passing behind him on the street to stop and look over. Enraged claws raked his thumb and wrist, drawing blood. Kakashi just squeezed tighter, and tighter until he heard a pop… and suddenly his hand was empty. The cat was gone.

For a few minutes more, Kakashi lingered in the street, scrutinising the note in his hand before he carefully folded it and slipped it into his pocket before setting off for the Hokage tower. He had afternoon appointment and hadn't been planning to go for another hour or so, but suddenly he felt he could no longer put it off.

Tsunade was waiting for him in her office, glasses on her nose and her jacket draped over her chair. "You're early," she said, in probably the same tone she might have used if he'd been late.

"You wanted to see me," he explained as he shut the door to ensure they were alone.

"That's never made you shift in the past," she sighed, taking her spectacles off and tucking them away in a drawer. She often did that when she met with someone. Kakashi had the feeling she was more self-conscious about her eyesight than she would like to admit. "Maybe you're turning over a new leaf?" she suggested.

Kakashi said nothing, because he was planning on doing no such thing.

"Well, I'll get right to the point Kakashi," she said, falling back into her chair. "I was going to retire this year and then this dratted war began to threaten. I'm not a strategist, and it was never my strong point. Sometimes you and I don't see eye to eye on the same matters… but for lack of anyone else more appropriate, I want to name you the sixth Hokage. Perhaps I've left it a little late, but this is important."

Kakashi stared at her. "Why?"

"You're the most experienced with war, strategy is your middle name, and Naruto is too eager to fight on the frontlines to take the responsibility. It'll have to be you. What Konoha needs right now is a strong, implacable leader, and I'm getting older. My advisors say handing you the reigns is the morale boost this village needs." Tsunade tipped her glasses up to look at him. "So what do you say?"

Kakashi remained thoughtfully quiet, then he smiled faintly and bowed. "I'd be honoured."

"Good. You'll be instated by the end of the month."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"And you better damn well find the people behind the Syndicate, Kakashi."

"Of course, Hokage-sama."

"That's all," Tsunade sat back, looking as if a thousand weights had been lifted from her shoulders. "Unless you have something else you'd like to say?"

"I did," he said, hand slipping into his pocket to trace the edges of Sakura's message between his fingers.

"I _knew_ there was a reason you had to be early," she grunted. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering… if you'd had any report from Sakura yet?" he asked tactfully, watching her face closely for any hint of deception.

All he saw was annoyance. "For goodness sake! Stop asking! You know perfectly well you're not cleared to know about her mission, but if it means you'll stop pestering me, _no_, she wasn't reported in yet. But that's not unusual."

"I see. Thank you," he said. "I'll never ask again, Hokage-sama."

"I'll hold you to that," she grumbled. "What happened to your hand anyway?"

Kakashi looked down at the frayed material of his right glove, along with the lines of dried blood gauged out over his thumb. He shrugged. "Cats don't like me."

"Wise animals," she remarked with a smirk. "You may go now."

He bowed to her and left the room without another word, shutting the door behind him just as carefully as when he'd entered. The waiting room outside was empty, and even though there was a sign posted above the message board warning visitors not to smoke, Kakashi took out his lighter and flicked it open. He rummaged around in his pocket, passing over two slightly bent cigarettes to withdraw the folded note from the cat's collar.

If Tsunade smelt the faint aroma of burning paper, she thought nothing of it.

* * *

Next Chapter: _A Spy Exposed_


	14. A Spy Exposed

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirteen: A Spy Exposed

* * *

_Nothing could be bring me closer,_

_Nothing could be bring me near._

_Where is the road I follow to leave?_

* * *

Sakura gave an inward sigh of impatience and fatigue. Her feet were sore and her arms ached from holding five heavy kinds of kimono of different colour and style. Aki looked as if she was going to sleep beside her with her ten kinds of obi stretched across her arms.

The fair-haired Hatake woman called Reika hummed and hahhed and couldn't seem to decide what to wear that day. She was even worse than Lady Zuru on her pickiest of mornings, and Lady Zuru was legendary when it came to fussing over her clothes.

"I think the blue will compliment your hair beautifully," Himiko tried to convince the woman.

"But it clashes with my eyes," Reika complained.

Both her hair and eyes were just pale shades of grey in Sakura's opinion, so she had no idea what either Himiko or the Hatake woman were talking about. Sakura watched the young woman smile at her own pale reflection, and something horribly and uncomfortably familiar struck her about that smile. Perhaps because it was like Kakashi's? But then… it really wasn't. Kakashi's smile was always mild and hesitantly given. This woman wore her smile all the time, and it wasn't necessarily a pleasant one.

"I like this one," she said, grabbed another obi from Aki's arms and threw the last one virtually in her face. Sakura frowned. By all accounts, Aki was part of this woman's family, but she treated Aki no better or worse than Sakura. Was the difference between the upper house and lower houses that pronounced? Sakura didn't think she'd seen such extreme classism since the Hyuuga clan.

But it wasn't just this woman's endless fussiness that grated on Sakura. It was the fourth day since she had sent Nya off with a message to Tsunade, and she should have arrived by now. Once the message was delivered, Nya would be able to summon herself instantly back to Sakura's side to report her success. She wondered if Tsunade would send any new orders through the little cat. Perhaps she would be asked to stay and learn more, or perhaps she would be told to come backm although at this point Sakura wasn't sure which option she'd be glad for. She didn't particularly want to go home... but she didn't exactly want to stay either.

Sakura was also dreading that report for another reason. It would mean that Konoha was alerted to the existence of the Hatake clan and its allegiance in this war. What did that mean for Kakashi? She could only hope that Tsunade did not take the usual approach with a suspected spy – which was to take them down into the darkest basements of the military police base where the temperature was controlled and the rooms well-drained. In the last war, plenty of innocent men had been taken down there, and she had no doubt the same would happen again as fear and suspicion and hysteria began to mount.

"Maybe the white one…" the Hatake woman continued to muse.

Sakura rolled her eyes. Bad mistake. The woman spotted her in the mirror and gave her a dirty look. "Leave then," she spat. "I have no desire to be waited on by an ill-mannered brat."

"I'm sorry," Sakura mumbled.

"I don't care. Get out."

Contriving to look humbled, Sakura handed over her heap of kimonos to a reproachful looking Himiko and went on her merry way. She'd probably be disciplined later by cleaning the toilets, but Sakura, a medic who'd seen more than her fair share of messes, wasn't squeamish about such things, and it was a fair price to pay to avoid waiting on a spoilt brat who had more clothes than sense.

As she passed along the top floor's long gallery, she looked out the window and paused a moment to look down at the trembling lake. It was a grey day and the mud was thick along the nearest shore where a group of dark-haired men trained. But despite being cumbered with such appalling ground cover, they seemed strong and fluid in their movements. These weren't mediocre shinobi, or even great shinobi.

These were men on par to Konoha's best.

Once again she worried about Tsunade's course of action upon receiving her report. Would she send a massive assault force to this very estate in order to corner the clan and ambush them pre-emptively? That would be the most tempting choice of action, and put an end to the Syndicate's involvement in the war. However, Tsunade would need to send a sizeable force, because this was the clan that had produced Hatake Kakashi, and it was almost certainly a family to be reckoned with.

But _would_ Tsunade take that action? Sending an army over the border to launch an attack on a rain country estate just a few miles away from Amegakure could be construed as an act of war. Could Konoha even take the risk that Ame would use it as an excuse to team up with Iwa? That would be even worse than Iwa teaming up with the Syndicate.

Sakura continued on her way down the stairs to head back to her room. It was only eleven o'clock and she was tired out. With nothing on her duty roster until after lunch, she wanted to catch a few winks on her bed.

It was not be, as she discovered. Dokko was sitting on the veranda outside the bedroom, holding down a frantic little calico cat with one paw. "Sakura, Sakura," it said weakly.

"Nya!" Sakura whispered. She quickly shut the door behind her and hurried over to the porch were the two cats sat. "You're back? What's going on?"

"Tell her," Dokko said curtly.

Nya wallowed miserably and looked up at Sakura with timid, manipulative woe. "Lost message."

Sakura stared at her. "You lost… the message?" she repeated.

Dokko nudged the little cat. "And the rest," he ordered.

Nya trembled. "Dog man stole collar."

"I don't understand," Sakura looked at Dokko. "What does she mean?"

"She's saying Hatake Kakashi intercepted her in Konoha. He took her collar and found the message," the older cat explained.

"I try stop him, and he try kill Nya!"

"_Kill?_" Sakura gasped, feeling something inside her beginning to break and crumble. It was unpleasant and devastating, and it made her lungs constrict and her head feel dizzy. "No… No, Kakashi isn't unkind like that. There's been some mistake. He wouldn't intercept a private message. He may not have even read it-"

"Read it, yes," Nya chattered. "He read."

"When?" Sakura demanded, panic making her voice louder and harsher than intended.

Nya cowered, trying to wriggle back underneath Dokko's paw for cover. "Day ago. Nya didn't want to go - had to go - pangy pains - couldn't come."

Sakura shook her head, unable to understand the muddled rush of words, so Dokko sighed and flicked his ears elegantly. "She's making excuses. She didn't summon herself back quickly enough when Kakashi caught her. She stupidly let him injure her, and wound up in the other realm. She only found her way back here an hour ago, so naturally you can assume he now has a day's headstart on you." His tail twitched angrily as he glared at Sakura. "Do you finally see his real nature now? Or are you going to try and suggest he passed it on to the Hokage himself, because he's just _that_ perfect."

"You're biased!" Sakura snapped. "You just don't like him because of his dogs!"

"And you're not biased?" Dokko hissed. "You're having his kittens!"

"I am _not_ – _having – anyone's – kittens!"_

She tried to get to her feet, but pain jumped low in her pelvis and she gasped. The second time in four days. The two cats hovered in quivering concern, but Sakura glared at them ferociously. "Go away! Both of you!"

Nya disappeared first, glad to escape, but Dokko loitered. "You have to assume you've been compromised. If he's a spy, he now knows where you are and he'll warn his clan. If you have sense, you'd leave tonight."

"Just leave me alone," Sakura growled, and slammed the shoji doors shut so Dokko couldn't follow her inside.

Immediately she collapsed onto her futon and took a couple of deep, unsteady breaths before the tears began rolling down her face. She didn't want to be in this place anymore. She didn't want to be pregnant. She didn't even want to be Haruno Sakura.

How could Kakashi be a spy? It wasn't even feasible. He'd been a genin since three, and a jonin since thirteen… his whole life had been spent _in_ and dedicated _to_ Konoha. What possible opportunity or motive could he have to defect? Even though she knew he'd been in communication with Karasu himself since seventeen at the very least…

She remembered that letter all too clearly. She remembered sitting at his desk, rifling through his drawers to find more naughty love letters, and though the letter hadn't made such an impression at the time, the words now leapt boldly to mind. She even remembered the exact handwriting.

_Dear Karasu, your invitation is extremely gracious… give little Reika my regards…  
_

Why had it been too much to hope that it had been nothing more than normal family correspondence?

But just because he'd intercepted her message didn't mean anything. Right? He was probably just being nosy and casually disregarding the rules for no good reason as usual. It didn't mean he was a spy. He probably, upon realising the meaning of the message, had passed it straight on to Tsunade – and in doing so show he had nothing to hide – YES! That was it. If Kakashi gave her the message that implicated himself, Tsunade wouldn't nearly be as suspicious of him! This could surely be the best result!

Only… why would Nya say he'd tried to kill her? It didn't sound like Kakashi. Was she exaggerating? Her language wasn't good, maybe what she meant to say was 'kiss' instead?

_You can think up excuses and fantasies until the cows come home, Sakura_, she told herself, _that doesn't change the fact Dokko is right._

Regardless of how strongly she believed in Kakashi, she had to leave this place. She had to _assume_ she'd been compromised… because only a fool gave themselves completely to optimism. It didn't matter if Kakashi was a saint. She'd learnt more than she'd expected, and it would be enough to complete the mission earlier than anyone could have predicted.

But Sakura didn't _want_ to go home. Returning to Konoha meant returning to being homeless, and three months pregnant to boot. Here she had a bed, free food, some new friends, no one had high hopes or expectations of her or would condemn her for her 'choice' in father, and even if a cutthroat bunch of mercenaries were living next door, she had until this moment felt safe. Once again, Kakashi had turned her sense of security upside down.

Sakura sat up and rubbed the tears from her eyes. Enough crying. She had nothing to fear from Kakashi. She'd been on countless missions with him and they had done a great deal of saving each other's lives. And even if the close rapport they'd been discovering had evaporated the morning she'd woken up in that hotel room, none of it had been fake. He cared for her. Whatever else he'd lied about, he couldn't have lied about that.

Besides, wouldn't she have noticed? On all these missions she'd been on with him, wouldn't she have noticed if he wasn't entirely loyal to Konoha? His missions always succeeded. He never gave anything less than 100%.

Except no… that hadn't been the case during the last batch of missions. They'd been given so many false leads. That hadn't been Kakashi's fault. Like the last one in Jonan, where they'd wandered around that town all day and found neither hide nor hair of any Iwa jonin or Syndicate member who-

Sakura went very stiff, horror creeping over her.

Suddenly she knew why the Hatake woman from that morning looked so damn familiar. It hadn't been because of any family resemblance to Kakashi. Sakura _had _seen her before.

When she'd returned to the inn that night with Kakashi in Jonan, there had been a maid at the door. One with bright grey eyes and platinum hair. She'd smiled the same way she had smiled when looking at her reflection in the mirror that very morning, and Kakashi had given her the most perplexing look.

And that was just before he'd started to act so weird… as if he hadn't wanted her to leave their room at all.

Sakura had thought nothing of it at the time, but he'd known then, hadn't he? He'd known she was one of his own. He _must_ have known what that implied and he'd said nothing.

He'd sabotaged the mission.

It was suddenly very difficult for Sakura to draw breath. She had to leave. She had to leave _now_.

No – she had to get a message to Tsunade, that was the most important thing right now. She had to warn Konoha before she did anything else, because spies who knew they'd been had were dangerous, unpredictable things. Sakura chanted to herself silently that Kakashi was no spy – Kakashi _was no spy – _even as she hurried to her closet and shook out the hidden compartment of her backpack. Inside was a scroll, and inside the scroll was a complex seal.

Sakura cradled this scroll to her chest and for a moment sat silently, listening. There were people passing down the corridor outside periodically, and it was getting close to lunch time. One of the other girls could walk in at any minute.

She hid the scroll up her sleeve and reopened the doors to the veranda as calmly as possible. There was no one around. Unseen, she picked her way through the forest, moving as far from the house as she had the day she'd sent Nya off with the message – far enough so that no one casually looking out of a window would see her.

There, Sakura released the seal of the scroll on the ground and a pile of electronic apparatus fell out of the papery surface. With trembling hands she began to assemble them.

The emergency radio was only ever to be used in a matter of life and death. Her being in imminent danger of being uncovered if Kakashi made so much as sent a telegram, and the Hokage being ignorant to one of her top most trusted jonin was sabotaging missions for the enemy was, in Sakura's opinion, a certified emergency. But these things weren't totally safe. Amegakure was nearby, and that was a village with serious paranoia problems. They used all sorts of jamming equipment to kill the transmissions of possible spies, and who knew how many frequencies they were monitoring right this minute.

Sakura could only gamble on the odds that they weren't watching the frequency Konoha used… unless of course they had a spy in Konoha who probably had given them a list of all the secret radio frequencies Konoha ninja used… _which they did_.

It didn't matter. Even if someone caught this transmission, she would be gone by the time they arrived.

She took a deep breath, attempting to steady her voice before she spun the dial to the right channel frequency and pressed the talk button on the handset.

"Homebase, this is Agent three-six-two, are you receiving? Over."

She waited, listening to the static and biting her lip. A branch snapped somewhere behind her, and she twisted anxiously… but there was no one. That still didn't remove the uneasy feeling tingling along the back of her neck that she was dangerously exposed here.

The receiver buzzed. "Agent three-six-two, we are receiving. Do you have the password? Over."

Damned if she could remember. "Hedgehog?"

"Sorry, you're not coming through well. Did you say porcupine? Over."

"Yes," Sakura lied.

"Password accepted. What's the nature of your emergency, Agent three-six-two? Over"

"I need to get a message to the Hokage, please. It's urgent. Over."

"Wait a moment…" the receiver went silent for a moment, and Sakura could just imagine the guy on the other end hunting around for a pen. "Ok, go. Over."

"It's the syndicate," she began quickly. "They're the Hatake clan."

There was a long pause on the other end, then. "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Did you say the Syndicate are going to attack us? Over."

"No!" Sakura snapped, her fear and wretchedness making her impatient and hostile. "I said they were-"

She was forced to stop suddenly when the line squealed and went dead – the cause of which was a five foot blade protruding from the transmission box.

"That's enough of that, I think."

Despite the warm humidity of the forest, Sakura felt cold and numb. She couldn't have run right then, even if she'd commanded herself to. She'd made an error of judgement and taken a chance she shouldn't have… and now she was going to pay for that dearly.

A man in dark clothes stepped around her, tugging up his katana and shaking the radio off the end of his blade like it was nothing more than a box of tissues. Sakura didn't look up, but she knew he was one of them. He wore the same uniform, and spoke in that same low, rich accent.

"So." The Hatake clansman stood before her, checking his katana for scratches. "A message for the Hokage, huh? What does that make you then? A spy from Konoha?"

He must have followed her from the house and listened to her transmission for as long as necessary. Sakura closed her eyes. Bitter tears leaked down her cheeks. She was as good as dead now.

"I was thinking I would have to take you back to the house for interrogation to find out who you worked for, but thanks to you, that's no longer a problem," he said easily. "I can just kill you now."

Sakura's head shot up to lock eyes with her would-be executioner. His hair was dark and his eyes were darker, but what scared her the most was that there wasn't a spark of cruelty or sadism in his eyes. He looked at her with resolved impassive responsibility. It was how Kakashi looked when he slit the throats and pierced the hearts of mortally injured enemies that couldn't be allowed to live.

And somehow this gave life back to Sakura's limbs. In a fraction of a second she was on her feet, lurching away from the man, but faster than the eye could blink he was behind her, his arm around her throat.

Sakura coughed and spluttered. He was lifting her, and squeezing, and she couldn't breath, or see, or think clearly. Where was the ground? Her feet struck out, connecting with his shins but made no impression. Desperately, her hands scrabbled at his face and arm, scratching and pinching, and she knew that if she didn't do something _now_ she would be dead in seconds. She could see him raising the katana, ready to drive it into her chest.

Gasping, she summoned all her natural strength and wrenched herself forward, just until she was loose enough to throw her head back and feel his nose crunch against her skull.

His grip loosened fractionally, and it was all Sakura needed. Her feet found the forest floor again and with another feat of chakra aided strength, she reached behind her to drag the man up and over her head. He landed with a thump on his back, his sword falling after him, and before Sakura could even debate or second guess herself, she snatched the weapon out of mid-air by the hilt and slammed the sharp edge down against his neck with another boost of chakra.

The ground split. Blood sprayed everywhere. The head of the Hatake clansman fell backwards and rolled a few times before coming to a dead stop against a bamboo trunk, his expression still one of surprise. He hadn't expected a fight. He hadn't expected to die.

But he should have known that compromised spies were unpredictable, dangerous creatures. Especially the pregnant ones. Sakura slipped to the floor, clutching her half-crushed throat with one hand and cradling her stomach with the other, staring in mute shock at the body of the man. There was hot blood splashed all over her arms and clothes. She could feel the flecks on her face. And for a while that was all she could do – sit and stare at the headless body and wonder what the hell was going to happen next.

She knew, though. They'd come looking for him, or they'd smell the stench of blood if their noses were half as good as Kakashi's. She couldn't hide all this. She couldn't go back to the house covered in blood. She perhaps had only minutes before someone came to investigate the sound and stench of this fight and if she was found standing over the dead body of their brother, she would be in even deeper shit than when she'd been found with just the radio.

Necessity drove her, even though all she felt like doing was collapsing onto a soft bed to fall unconscious for the rest of the day. She hastily began gathering the pieces of the radio together to seal them back inside her scroll, along with the bloodied sword she'd used. She tucked it safely into her sleeve.

Then she shakily crawled up to the headless corpse and half pulled it into her lap, immune to the oozing blood that dripped from the severed neck onto her yukata. With one last look at the head still wearing its surprised expression, Sakura lifted her head and screamed.

She screamed twice more for good measure and then began to weep. Summoning tears wasn't difficult right now. She had so many things to cry about that all she needed to do was remove the floodgates and let her true feelings overwhelm her.

When the first two Zuru guards arrived, she was a veritable mess of tears and snot and fear.

"What happened?!" One of the guards demanded, but neither seemed to want to come close. They could both see exactly what had happened from over there, and Sakura wondered if this was their first time seeing a corpse.

As more people arrived – dark haired Hatake men, and scarlet uniformed Zuru guards – Sakura began her halting, jumbled story. "Th-there was a man! He was trying to-" she gestured to her own red and bruised throat. "But then he came – and he fought him – and then I screamed and he took the sword and ran! It's all my fault! H-He's dead! H-His head – the sword – one strike – oh my god…"

She looked hysterical to them. In fact she _felt _a little hysterical too, because she knew if they didn't buy this, her head might roll the same way. Hands began tugging at her arms and wrists, dragging her from beneath the corpse, helping her stand and pulling her away from the scene of the crime. The Zuru guards looked grim while the Hatake mercenaries looked on impassively.

The Hatake man on her right held her upright. "Which way did he go, miss?"

Sakura pointed in an arbitrary direction away from the house. "That way."

"You two, take her back to the house. She's had a shock. The rest of you, come with me!"

Sakura allowed herself to be helped up and weakly escorted back to the household while the rest of the men disappeared into the forest, searching for an imaginary felon. Her tottering steps weren't an act, however. If the two Zuru guards hadn't been there to hold her up, she would have fallen to the ground – not because she was weak-kneed with shock, but because the sharp pains from before were back, twisting in her abdomen worse than ever.

But the men didn't understand her gasps and her reluctance to walk and all but dragged her back to the servant's quarters.

It was clear that her screams had carried well, as now a crowd of servants was gathered along the previously deserted veranda, looking out at the forest anxiously. Mutters of horror and alarm went up when Sakura appeared, clotting blood stains all over her face and arms and thickly drenched in her dress. She was handed straight away to Himiko, the only person who didn't recoil from the sight of her, and the woman ushered her through the rapidly parting crowd of mystified men and women and back into her room for some peace and quiet.

"My dear, you look as if you've had a terrible fright."

She wasn't half wrong. She'd come within an inch of being exposed, and then a fraction of losing her life, and then she had killed a man, which always shook her up even on the best of days, and now she had severe cramps. It was almost enough to drive the likelihood of Kakashi's betrayal from her mind… but not quite. Underneath it still throbbed away, a constant dull ache underlining everything. She felt drained. Tired. Her thousand yard stare so alarmed Himiko that the older woman made her lie down as she whipped away her clothes and fetched a bowl of hot, soap water to clean her skin.

"Nothing that a cup of tea can't fix," she said, probably trying to remain cheerful for Sakura's sake. And true enough, the next thing Sakura knew, she was being passed a steaming cup of sweet herbs that smelled as if it had a strong dose of sleeping pills. Sakura's trained nose never lied. She was tempted to drink, but she couldn't let her guard down now.

"You must rest," Himiko told her. "Such agitation can't be good for the baby."

Sakura couldn't rest. Her attempt to warn Tsunade may have backfired, but she still needed to leave this place. She had to make plans and preparations for the journey back, but now that she was three months pregnant, she had severe doubts about her own stamina. Just the simplest action of lifting that man over her head had been not only difficult, but absolutely exhausting and more than a little painful. The longer she lay with Himiko wiping the warm cloth over her arms, the more the cramps faded, but she couldn't ignore that they were getting frequent, especially when she exerted herself physically. And being a medic rather than a midwife, she didn't know what that meant.

"I don't care," she rasped to Himiko, another tear sliding down her temple and into her hair. "What if I'm losing it anyway?"

Himiko passed the cloth over her face. "What do you mean?"

"I keep getting pains…"

"Where?"

Sakura gestured to her lower abdomen, and Himiko hummed in concern. "Have you been bleeding?"

"No…"

"Is it going away now that you're resting?"

"Sort of, yes."

"Then that's probably normal. You're getting bigger. Things are shifting and stretching, and there's bound to be some pain. Don't let it worry you. As long as you _relax_ once in a while you'll be fine."

Sakura sighed, faintly reassured at least about one thing and settled back on her futon. Now that the pains had faded, she felt her anxiety begin to relax. Then another worry struck her. "Am I really getting bigger?" she whispered.

"Of course, dear."

"Do I… do I look fat?"

"…no."

That sounded too contrived. Sakura sniffed and fresh tears leaked from her eyes. Why couldn't she ever win? If it wasn't her team leader sabotaging missions and giving her no choice but to suspect him, it was every diet she'd ever been on being all for nothing.

The door to her right suddenly slid open and Aki came in, followed by Kaoru.

"Sakura," the dark haired Aki whispered in timid concern. "Are you alright?"

Sakura was suddenly very grateful that Himiko had dealt so quickly with all the blood. That wasn't something these two girls should ever have to see.

"We've heard it from one of the guards," Kaoru explained quickly. "They're trying to catch the man who did this. I hope they do. Attacking girls like that… what kind of brute would behave that way?"

"He was probably a spy," Aki said knowledgeably.

Kaoru glanced at her in surprise. "Spying on what?"

"My family probably… it's not like they're up to any good here."

"Girls, less chatter, if you please," Himiko chastised them. "Poor Sakura's had a fright. She needs her rest. Why don't you hop off and see how-"

"No – I'd like them to stay," Sakura said quickly. "I don't want to be alone right now after that… that horrible man tried to…"

Sakura was instantly swarmed by two emphatically sympathetic girls. "Poor Sakura!" Kaoru declared, grabbing her hand. "You brave thing," Aki agreed, stroking her hair. And it was nice to be mollycoddled, but Sakura wasn't sure if she would ever feel comfortable here again. As nice as these girls were, they couldn't keep her here. She still had strong reasons to get the hell out. With the Hatake clan around, it was just too dangerous to contemplate staying.

As if to prove this point, the door to the corridor slid open yet again and now a man with white hair stood there. Due to his colouring, he was evidently one of the 'upper house' Hatake clansmen. He looked at Sakura in her bed, but the three women around her rose swiftly to shield his view. It wasn't respectable to come barging into a ladies' room and peer at women in their beds.

"Hatake-sama?" Himiko asked. "Can I help you?"

"The girl needs to come with me," he said, obviously referring to Sakura. Ice water flushed through her veins and she tried to sink further into her mattress. Had they realised the man she'd sent them after was a lie? Had they realised she was the real killer? Was he planning to take her off to execution?

"I'm afraid that would be ill-advised. She needs rest," Himiko continued politely, but firmly.

"That's regrettable, but Karasu-sama insists on seeing her at once."

Oh. Shit.

* * *

Tsunade sat at on the lounger of the Hokage's library and council room. The words on the papers in her lap had long ago turned to indecipherable squiggles and now she sat rubbing her tired eyes and staring at the back of her eyelids. This was about the most sleep she got these days.

Iwa's troops were moving. Already there were skirmishes happening along the border. They'd been held back so far, but she dreaded the day the Syndicate would start throwing its weight around. That rabid wild dog needed to be down before it bit, if it hadn't already in some way.

Half her force was deployed now. Naruto was gone. Sai was gone. Virtually all the chunin were gone, but she refused to send genin out. Part of what had horrified her about the wars she'd fought in were how young the dead bodies were. She wanted to avoid that this time, and would hold off sending children until the last adult lay dead.

Someone knocked on the chamber door. Tsunade cursed beneath her breath. "Come in," she grunted.

Shizune entered, holding a slip of paper in her hand. "There's been an urgent message from Sakura, Tsunade-sama," she said.

The hokage sat bolt upright. "What is it?"

"Uh, _well,_" Shizune looked down at the incomplete note in her hand with a grimace. "She said something about the Syndicate, but it appears that Amegakure jamming signals were distorting the transmission so the message isn't clear. She was cut off rather quickly."

"What does that mean?"

"We don't know," Shizune admitted with a worried expression. "The operator says it may be bad weather, or jamming signals… or something happened to Sakura."

Tsunade rubbed her lips and stared into the middle distance as she deliberated her choices. "This was an emergency radio transmission?" she asked.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama."

"Then we'll treat it as an emergency. Send someone who's free to her location as quickly as possible."

"Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji are free, and Gai just returned from a border battlefield with Kakashi yesterday-"

"Kakashi. He knows her and he's probably the best available right now. Bring him here."

With a nod, Shizune quickly hurried out. Tsunade got to her feet and began pacing, unable to keep still in her impatience. Six men and one woman had already been lost in the skirmishes on the borderlands between the fire and earth country, and two more undercover operatives had vanished without a trace over the last three weeks. It was safe to say they had been discovered and terminated. Tsunade didn't want to think of Sakura falling to the same fate.

Shizune returned within an hour, but not with Kakashi much to Tsunade's immense irritation.

"Where is he?" The hokage snapped at her assistant before she could open her mouth.

"I-I can't find him," Shizune stammered. "I don't understand; you see, I saw him yesterday morning and he isn't registered for another mission for a couple more days, but he's no where. He's gone. The birds can't find him."

"How can he be gone?" Tsunade raged, feeling ready enough to throw the nearest object across the room. And that object was Shizune.

Sensing this, Shizune backed up a step or two. "Um, I don't know," she said hesitantly. "Perhaps he left with another regiment? He's supposed to be resting and recuperating, but you know what he's like. He's probably heading right back to the border as we speak."

In a way she was right, but not to the border she was thinking of.

"Dammit," Tsunade sighed. "When that man is initiated as Hokage, he'll have to be cuffed to that desk to prevent him from pulling stunts like this."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Shizune agreed quite seriously.

"Now bring me Ino."

* * *

Next Chapter: _Arrival_


	15. Arrival

**House of Crows**

Chapter Fourteen: Arrival

* * *

_Hold up, hold on, don't be scared,_

_You'll never change what's been and gone._

* * *

The only sound Sakura could hear was the pounding of her own heartbeat. The white-haired man was leading her towards the crane wing where all the primary guestrooms lay, and a wing she'd been banned from after the Zuru family had decided she was an unsightly blight on their guests. Although, retrospectively, collapsing during the welcome committee was not nearly as offensive as decapitating one of said guests.

Real fear gripped Sakura. If they had figured out what she'd done, she was as good as dead, and her escort's easy silence was no reassurance. If they'd rooted her out as a spy, they wouldn't tell her until they'd enticed her into their lair. She could be marching to her death here. But if she split and ran, she would almost certainly confirm her guilt.

She _had_ to play along.

Her escort stopped outside the master guestroom and gently wrapped on the door. "She's here," he called.

Karasu's voice called back. "Send her in."

The man slid open the door and stepped back to allow Sakura inside. But the girl didn't move. It could have been that fear locking her knees – a final plea for self-preservation. It could have been that immediately opposite the door was a table, and on this table was a head.

It was staring straight at her, still wearing the same surprised expression it had worn when she'd separated it from its body.

A white cloth suddenly dropped over the face of her victim and a masked man stepped in front of it. He glanced at Sakura distractedly. "Is something wrong with your legs? You're allowed to enter."

Hesitantly, Sakura took a tiny step inside. The door slammed shut behind her abruptly, close enough to stir her hair, and Sakura froze, feeling like a rat who'd been caught in a cage. He gaze instinctively inched sideways, looking for an escape, and she saw that the shoji doors along one whole wall had been pushed back to reveal the veranda outside. It was a much nicer view than the one from her bedroom. Rather than just some scrub and bamboo, this room looked out onto a part of the sloping garden, beyond which spread the lake like an ocean. Perhaps on a nicer day it would have been a pleasant view, but now there were storm clouds boiling overhead. It wasn't weather that called for wide open doors. Nevertheless, it was a way out if things got desperate.

She slid her eyes back carefully to Karasu, avoiding the mounded cloth on the table. Some might think she was avoiding the head because it disturbed her, but in reality it was that she knew from this point on she couldn't take her eyes of the man prowling the length of the room before her.

This was the clan leader of the Hatake clan, and the mastermind behind the Syndicate. Sometimes men could look disarmingly normal next to their strings of impressive titles and achievements… sometimes their presence matched their reputation precisely. Karasu was the latter. Perhaps it was the fact that her life now lay in his hands, or even just the realisation that she was completely alone with him now, but Sakura was keenly aware of his every move and his every sound unlike she'd ever been before in his company. When he glanced at her a second time, it was like being pierced with a dart. "Sit," he said, indicating a spot on the floor.

Sakura obeyed as smoothly as she could, keeping her eyes glued to his feet as he paced towards the open doors. It was beginning to rain, and as Sakura knelt down, a peculiar breeze swept around the room that felt both warm and wet.

For a long time he just stared at the grey scenery, and Sakura watched him out the corner of her eye. She kept shooting the cloth-covered head anxious looks. Why was it here? Was he trying to rattle her? Karasu was doing a good job of ignoring her so far, and that only made Sakura feel even more tense and worried. _Why _had he called her here? Was the game really up? Why else would that head be on display?

At great length, the Karasu turned away from the view of the lake to glance over her in a vague, yet no less deliberate way. He reached up and the loose mask gathered around his lower face fell around his neck. He smiled at her, far too pleasantly for a man of his stature. "Sorry," he said. "I know it's rude to address people with a covered face, but I forget sometimes. Are you comfortable?"

Disorientated by the natural, friendly smile he gave her, Sakura nodded hesitantly. Kneeling on wooden floorboards was never going to be all that comfortable, but servants didn't complain. "Yes, Hatake-sama," she replied quietly, averting her eyes to her knees.

"What's your name?" he continued, and although his smile was warm, when she looked up it was his eyes that gave him away. The pleasantry was skin-deep. From behind his light tone and cheerful smile, he watched her with analytical coldness.

This mild interrogation was just preliminary warm ups to the main event.

"Sakura, sir," she replied.

"Do you have a surname, Sakura-chan?"

Inwardly, she bristled at the diminutive. "Yamanaka, sir." Because Ino had planned this mission with the intent of using Sakura's name, Sakura thought it only fair to use Ino's name as well.

Karasu began to pace, so slowly and casually that a less observant person might not have even noticed. If he was Kakashi, she would recognise this as very unusual, because Kakashi so rarely paced or expended energy on any other kind of unnecessary movement that it had to be something big bothering him, even if he was otherwise calm in appearance. Karasu was not Kakashi, but Sakura realised that they were enough alike to react the same. She'd observed his lackadaisical mannerisms a few times now to know his restlessness was a sign of torment. Torment that he'd lost a clan member? Or torment that an enemy was among them?

As he moved, he asked her, "How long have you been here?"

A tricky question. Her initial reaction was to say 'years' as that would lower the probability in his mind of her being a mole. But if he was a cautious man he'd no doubt check with the other staff about this, and you didn't get to be head of an elite mercenary clan and the absolutely untraceable leader of an underground crime ring by being anything other than meticulous.

"I've been here almost two months, sir," she said honestly, even if it was closer to one month.

"I see," he nodded, tugging lightly on his lower lip as he paced around the table bearing the severed head. Then he stopped. "And how old are you?"

"Twenty, sir."

He resumed pacing. "How did you come to be here, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura remembered her cover story. "My guardian applied for me. I needed the work."

"And you're happy here?"

"Yes, sir," she said mechanically.

"Your accent is broad, but you're not actually from the Rain country, are you, Sakura-chan?"

It was one of those questions phrased in a deliberately and deceptively light way. Sakura schooled her expression. "No, sir."

"I see." He stopped his pacing once more to face her more fully. "You're from the fire country, aren't you?"

An unpleasant, sweaty tingle started in her palms. "Yes."

"I recognise the accent because I know someone from Konoha, you see. Maybe you've met him?"

"I-I've never been to Konoha," she said. What with the fire country being a big, broad place, she figured it was safe to claim this.

"Is that so?"

Karasu stopped next to the table again, looking at the pristine white cloth that covered such an ugly mess beneath. "Sakura-chan?" he asked lightly. "How are you with blood?"

"I-I…" she stammered, not sure how to answer. How would a maid who knew nothing of gory medicine answer? If the question was about blood, the answer was easy. There weren't many girls of child bearing age who feared blood. But if the question was about _severed heads_? "N-Not good, Hatake-sama. Not after w-what I saw today."

"Yes," he sighed, leaning his elbows on the table, looking at her over the top of the bulging cloth. "I was told how you were found. I'm amazed you can still talk. Most other girls in your position would be gibbering wrecks for the rest of the week."

Sakura didn't think she could maintain the act of a gibbering wreck for a week. She just had to hope he thought her an exceedingly stoic and matter-of-fact kind of girl. Maybe she should make a small addition to her cover story and start telling people that her first job had been in an abattoir?

"Was your assailant armed?" Karasu asked her.

Sakura nodded.

"And he ran off with the murder weapon?

Sakura nodded again.

"Even though this weapon belonged to the one who fell?" Karasu put his head on one side. "That's _very_ peculiar behaviour for a man who was already armed."

Sakura's palms continued to tingle unpleasantly as an explanation jumbled forth easily, one that was just a variation of the truth. "The man who attacked me was armed… he had a sword but he caught me around the neck first. He tried t-to strangle me to death – I couldn't even scream. That's when the other man came along… the one who died. He came at us with a sword, but my attacker just – like – pulled him over his head, took the sword and… and… and I-I've never seen so much blood. It – he – fell on me, and I just screamed and screamed. The guy who did it just ran. I only noticed he took the sword with him because for a moment I thought he was going to use it on me next."

It sounded convincing to her ear at least, but Karasu's smile seemed to have been forgotten and he stared at her in a hard, calculating way.

Somewhere above the lake, the clouds bunched and a low rumble shook the sky. As if in response, the rain suddenly began pelting the roof even harder, and Sakura glanced sideways briefly to see the surface of the lake had turned grey with the millions of tiny ripples. Before she could turn away, an enormous, hairy shape lumbered out of the bushes and lopped onto the veranda.

Instinctively, Sakura shrunk back.

"Don't worry," Karasu told her. "She doesn't bite."

Sakura wasn't sure she trusted him on that. The animal that had sloped into the room was a wolf, one with long, skinny legs and snow white fur that hung in wet, grey clumps. The size of it alarmed her the most, as when it went to sit by Karasu it's head easily reached his elbow, although perhaps it was the staring blue eyes that put her on edge the most.

It had to be a summon, she thought, as the large wolf turned her shaggy back on Sakura and said something low and quiet to Karasu. When she stopped, they both looked at her, and not for the first time Sakura was struck by the instinct to haul ass.

"As it stands, Sakura-chan," Karasu began. "Your life is in very real danger."

_Oh god, _was that a threat?

"One of my brothers lies dead today-"

"Your brother?" Sakura squeaked in horror.

"Well, figuratively speaking. He was more a third cousin removed once or twice." Karasu shrugged with a sigh. "Either way, you can see how this concerns me greatly."

"Yes, sir."

"Yet my men, my wolves, and our crows have combed the surrounding forest back and forth and not one trace of this mysterious assailant can be found."

Sakura tried to look as if this had nothing to do with her.

"The only lead we have right now, apparently, is you." Karasu's half-lidded gaze landed on her most uncomfortably. "But… I understand that this has been a difficult day for you. Perhaps it's not fair to drudge forth the horrible memories of what just happened to you. I'd rather talk to the second witness to this crime."

"S-Second witness?" Sakura breathed, struck dumb. How could there have been a witness besides herself? She'd _killed_ the only other witness!

"Of course," Karasu said simply. "The poor man himself. Who else?"

He reached out a hand and dragged the white cloth off the severed head.

Sakura didn't know where to look. She didn't know how to react. How could he say one moment he didn't want to drudge up bad memories and then in the next breath introduce her to the head of a corpse? It was a sick joke! Who would do that to _anyone… _unless they honestly thought she was the one responsible.

"You're frightened," Karasu observed. "I have extremely good ears, I can hear your heart pounding."

Sakura made no effort to control herself. Her breath came in shallow puffs as she clenched the fabric over her thighs and stared resiliently at the floor. "I… I feel sick, Hatake-sama," she whispered, as if she couldn't stand to be in the same room as that head. "Please… please let me leave."

"It's just a head, Sakura-chan," Karasu chided. "It can't hurt you."

"Please, sir, I don't think this is funny-"

"I agree. This isn't funny at all, and I wasn't joking about asking my poor brother what happened to him. We have a jutsu; a technique, if you please, in our family that has been passed down from generation to generation since the time of our founder. It's a bit of a secret, so you should feel honoured that I'm telling you this at all. Because with this jutsu, I can give life back to the dead."

Sakura stared at him. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. Not even the Hokages had power over death like that.

"Of course, it's not true life," Karasu amended, "and it certainly doesn't last long. But if you want to learn what happened in the last moments of a person's life, it is _extremely_ convenient. Don't you agree?"

"No," Sakura said unthinkingly.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I… I don't think it's very nice," she muttered quickly, trying to sound apologetic. "I wouldn't like to wake up without a body. I think that's cruel. H-He's suffered enough, why can't you let him rest in peace?" She ended with a shudder and looked away again, and nothing about the reaction was faked. "Please, if you wish to know what happened, I will tell you everything I remember. I'll try really hard. But you shouldn't do that to a person who died so horribly."

She heard Karasu laugh slightly. "Yes, I suppose you're right. I'd rather take _his_ word over yours, but the fact remains that it would be useless to use that jutsu anyway. He has, after all, had his vocal chords cut and his lungs are currently elsewhere. Getting him to talk would be a little difficult."

Sakura frowned slightly. He _was_ trying to rattle her. Why else would he bring up such a grizzly jutsu, threaten to use it, and then explain he couldn't? At least she was safe. She dreaded to think that had she killed the man any other way, he might now be telling everyone what she'd done. Karasu had to rely on her word now, and hers alone.

But already she sensed he suspected her of something…

"I'm glad you're willing to talk." He said, covering the head again and reaching out to stroke the wolf's ears. "As you're the only one who saw the assassin clearly. I want you to describe him."

As much as she wished this was an admission that he believed her story, she remained cautious. There was probably a trap laid out here somewhere. Clearing her throat, she began a halting description. "Well… the man who attacked me was tall," she said. "He had dark hair… dark eyes… dark clothes… that's all I can really remember." Only after she said it did she realise she had essentially just described the man she'd killed, along with 90% of his relatives currently residing in this estate.

"Do you know if your attacker was wearing a signed forehead protector?" Karasu asked. Beside him, the wolf sniffed in Sakura's direction the same way Pakkun sniffed when he smelt cat-flavoured biscuits in the oven. She didn't like to think what that might mean, so she concentrated her attention on her knees once more.

"I think… I think he was, yes," she answered.

"Could you draw it?"

"I'm not sure," she whispered. "I don't think so."

"Would you recognise it if you saw it again?"

"Perhaps?" she guessed uncertainly. Did he really believe her?

The head of the Hatake clan moved to a cupboard from which he withdrew a shallow box. Returning to Sakura, he took several forehead-protectors from the box and laid them out on the floor in front of her, one-by-one, side-by-side. Immediately, Sakura recognised each bore a different symbol. There was the one for Konoha, another for Iwa, another for Suna, and Waterfall… all the major and minor villages were there. Sakura didn't like to think how this man might have gotten his hands on such a collection, since the only way to receive one of these was to become a pledged shinobi… or tear it off the body of one.

"Was it any one of these?" he asked her.

Sakura took her time looking over the symbols, wondering what the hell to do. Should she play it dumb and safe by claiming she didn't remember? Should she be bold and point to the symbol for Iwa and hope to sow a seed of mistrust between this clan and the rock village?

After chewing her cheek for a long time, she slowly reached out a finger and pointed to one particular forehead-protector. "This one."

Karasu's eyes narrowed. "You're sure?"

Sakura looked down at the Konoha headband she pointed to. "Yes. It was that one definitely."

It was a risky move, and she was banking on Karasu's intelligence to see underneath the underneath, so to speak. She knew that a smart man would consider the possibility that someone had worn Konoha's symbol deliberately in an attempt to disguise their true origin, or possibly frame Konoha. And by implicating Konoha, there was a lesser chance of her being implicated as a spy in return. How many spies pointed fingers at their own side?

He rose to his feet again with the Konoha protector in his hand, watching her with a faint, almost knowing smile. "This is the insignia for the Leaf Village," he said.

"Oh," she said.

"You grew up in the Fire country, yes?"

"Yes, sir," Sakura admitted again.

"Perhaps you recognised this from somewhere else due to your natural proximity to Konoha?"

"Maybe. I really am not sure, Hatake-sama," she said worriedly. "I hope I don't mess up your investigation…"

"It's nothing," he replied. "You've been more helpful than you realise."

Sakura hoped that was true. He made it sound like she'd implicated herself… and maybe she had. She gazed anxiously at her knees, until his finger touched her chin and her head jolted up in response. He touched something in her hair, and when his hand came away she saw dry, rusted blood on his fingertips.

"You're a very brave girl," he told her, still smiling as if there was some amusing joke she didn't understand. "Unusually brave. You're going to make one hell of a mother."

A pang of alarm lanced through her chest and she drew back sharply as her face steadily turned pink. Save for Himiko, nobody else had realised she was pregnant in this place. She hugged herself a little more self-consciously and prayed he would just let her go.

_Finally_, someone answered her prayer. Karasu rose to his feet, flicking the blood from his fingers. "You might as well go, I think. We're done." Karasu told her magnanimously, much to her supreme relief. She might live to see another day at least. But then he glanced at the door. "Denji!"

The clansman who had escorted her there entered. "Karasu-sama?"

"Take this girl back to her room and keep an eye on her."

Sakura gaped. "I'm not sure why I need to be watched-"

"I should warn you, Sakura-chan." Karasu chided. "Your life is in real danger, considering you're the only one who has seen this assailant's face. Perhaps he'll return tonight to silence you for good? Wouldn't you appreciate a guardian keeping watch over you?"

Well, that had come back to bite her in the ass awfully quick. Sakura looked at Denji, but couldn't summon a smile. She didn't need protecting from an assailant of her own invention, and having a watchdog on her heels was a serious spanner in the works of her escape plan. But one look back at Karasu and that enormous she-wolf sitting next to him, and Sakura didn't think the point was worth arguing. Instead she just got up and bowed respectfully as she'd been taught and backed out of the room.

Being followed around for the rest of the day was perhaps one of the more uncomfortable experiences Sakura had ever had in the Zuru household. While she sat mending clothes in the dorm with Himiko and Yui, he was there standing in the hall; or when she was pinning up clothes on the washing line outside, he was always there sitting on the porch, half watching her and half not.

For her own protection? Sakura wondered if perhaps _she_ was the one under surveillance. Perhaps Karasu had only pretended to believe her story about a vanishing killer after all? From the corner of her eye she watched the man – Denji (probably Hatake Denji, at that) – just as intently as he pretended not to watch her. An itchy kind of impatience made her fumble along in her duties, hardly paying attention to her work. She needed to leave. While she sat here sewing little buttons on little dresses, Kakashi was probably sending a message via the fastest Konoha hawk to Karasu in order to inform him of Sakura's treachery. It was probably landing on a perch in the messenger bird house three hundred yards away at that very moment. What if Karasu was already reading it? What if someone was already coming to separate _her _head from her shoulders?

A wave of dizziness rocked Sakura where she sat sewing and for a moment she had to put a hand to her head. "Excuse me," she said to Yui and Himiko before putting her sewing down and standing. The bathroom was just across the hallway, and as Sakura passed her watchdog, she glanced at him sideways, daring him to follow her.

Thankfully, he didn't. Sakura finally had a moment of reprieve from the scrutiny, and she sat on the on the floor beside the toilet to collect her thoughts and plans while she recovered from her dizzy spell. It helped that the air was cooler in here too.

The windows were a little too small to escape from here, and she hadn't any equipment or provisions to help her through the forest to the border anyway.

"Hell…" she whispered to herself as she ran her hands through her hair. How was she supposed to get out of this in one piece?

A soft billow of smoke alerted her to the arrival of a large ginger cat on the tiles before her. Dokko looked around in severe concern for his hygiene before fixing his pale eyes on Sakura. "I was wondering when I would finally get you alone," he hissed. "The situation has gone from bad to worse."

"How?" Sakura sighed, not sure if she could take any more bad news.

"The grounds are crawling with wolves and crows. They're summons of the Hatake clan," he explained. "I've been hiding all day from them, but I won't be able to keep it up. If they see me they'll recognise me for what I am and then they'll _know_ there's a spy here. I should leave at once."

"What?" Sakura sat bolt upright. "Dokko, you can't leave! I need you here!"

Dokko's ears sagged a little sadly. "I know, but the longer I stay, the greater chance you have of being discovered. You know this is the sensible course of action."

"But… I'll be all alone."

The cat said nothing to this for a moment, except, "You need to leave too, as soon as you can."

Sakura pressed her face into her hands. "I should never have come here," she whispered

Dokko was probably inclined to agree, but instead he just crawled onto her lap and curled up in a ball. "Stroke me."

The therapeutic charm of his auburn fur still wasn't lost on her and as Sakura ruffled her fingers lightly behind his ears and over his back, the sound of his purr calmed her a little. "But you're my ears in this place, Dokko. What am I going to do without you?" she asked.

"Use your electronic ears, perhaps?"

"Oh, Dokko…"

"Don't worry, Sakura," he purred. "After all, you always-"

He stopped suddenly, turning tense and prickly as his claws dug into her dress.

"Dokko?" she asked worriedly.

"I'm being summoned…" he whispered, and in a wisp of smoke he was gone, his weight fading from her lap as if he'd been a ghost all along.

Sakura doubted she would see him again for a long while.

With a heavy heart she left the bathroom and returned to her work, and when the night settled in, she went to bed feeling quiet and gloomy. Although it had to be said that all the girls in the bedroom were unusually quiet and docile that evening, and this was almost certainly because of the presence of one Hatake Denji stationed on the veranda outside. The doors were shut, but they weren't thick doors, and his silhouette could easily be seen so it still felt a real invasion of privacy. Yui gave her a scathing look as if this was all Sakura's fault, which it was, and even Aki and Kaoru looked awfully concerned about the arrangement.

Knowing she probably wouldn't be able to tiptoe off in the middle of the night for a midnight snack, Sakura made sure to pull her backpack close to her futon so she could reach inside and grab a chocolate bar if the mood took her. And when she was certain everyone in the room was asleep and the man outside hadn't moved for half an hour, she reached into the secret compartment and withdrew a small headset that slotted into her ear.

There was silence as usual in the microphone, interrupted only occasionally by the odd snort or snore. Since the bug was in master guestroom, Sakura could only assume it was Karasu. But evidently he was asleep right now and unless he talked in his sleep, she would hear nothing interesting.

Nevertheless, she left her headset hooked around her left ear and lay on her left side so no one would idly notice it if they looked over at her. Then she fell asleep to troubled dreams of cats being mauled by wolves and crows and of men strangling her in the forest before she could fight back. She felt as trapped in her dreams as she did in reality. She even dreamed explicitly that she was stranded in a maze that seemed to have no exit or logic to its paths, and then she found herself back in the master guestroom with Karasu and he was talking to his wolf as if Sakura wasn't there. And it was a horribly mundane conversation. The wolf was talking about how itchy and smelly the damp heat of the rainforest made her fur, and Karasu was recommending a shampoo to her.

It took her a moment to realise that what she was hearing wasn't a dream at all, but real voices in her ear. She roused slowly to discover herself in her warm, cosy bed while the audio track of her dream continued regardless of her consciousness, and it took her a further moment until she twigged the importance of what she was hearing.

"…I'm a wolf, not a poodle. I'm not using shampoo."

"Then go for a swim in the lake."

"I'll smell ten times worse."

"You're just complaining for the sake of complaining. Where's your stoicism?"

"I just don't like this place, Karasu. The climate is too hot and humid for people with coats like mine, and I don't trust this family an inch."

"The Zuru family is trustworthy."

"How do you know?"

Karasu could be heard chuckling. "Leverage, Luppa."

"What sort of leverage is it this time, Karasu?"

"The usual; money. Family. He owes his wealth to us beating down his competition and persuading his neighbours to sell their land to him at agreeable prices. He also owes us his family. Zuru has all the virility of a dead rabbit, do you think for a second that any of his children are his own? His wife took a lover from the lower house of the clan around twenty five years ago. Hatake Toshi I think was his name."

"Don't tell me..."

"Toshio is one of ours? Yes."

"That skinned turd of a brat is Hatake?"

"Yes, well, we don't advertise that, thanks. Zuru has made the boy in his image, even though he knows he isn't the father, and he won't make a fuss as long as he doesn't want to have to disown the boy and be forced to leave his estate to distant family he has no influence over. We've got so much dirt on him he knows that if he ever crosses me we will crush him so swiftly it will be like he never existed at all."

"Don't be too complacent. Sounds like he has every reason to hate you."

"Oh, he hates us. But we're far too good for business to betray. The man is practical to a fault. Though I'm surprised you didn't notice the smell of the son. He's obviously one of us."

"I have no interest in smelling him."

"Fair enough. But you noticed the girl, didn't you."

"As did you. It was fairly obvious."

"What was her name…? Some awful common flower name, I think…"

"You mean the fainting girl."

"Yes, that's the one."

Sakura snapped fully awake, her heart lodged somewhere in her throat. They were talking about _her._

"I was tempted to ask," she heard Karasu say in a fading voice as if he was moving away from the bed. "Seemed kind of rude though."

"Rude? You all but threw Matsuke's head at her just to make her quiver like a little rabbit. He'll haunt you for this."

"He wouldn't dare."

"Do you intend to do anything about the girl?"

"Not yet… I like to know exactly which cards an opponent has before I play my hand."

"I don't get poker metaphors."

"It means I'll just wait and see. It could mean nothing anyway."

There was a distant clatter as if a door was being opened.

"I'm going for a walk," Karasu said, sounding even further away. "Use my shampoo if you like."

It went quiet after that, so Sakura pulled the headset from her sore ear and hid it back within the secret compartment of her bag. She rolled over, just to make sure Denji's silhouette was still there (it was) and then went back to sleep.

Half an hour later, Kaoru shook her shoulder. It was time for breakfast.

As they dressed, Aki shot a look of consternation at the door behind which Denji stood. "Sakura, are they going to follow you _everywhere_?" she asked in a whisper.

Sakura shrugged.

"I just think it's odd," Aki went on. "Normally they really don't care for anyone but themselves. They can't be watching you out of concern for your safety… I think they hope to use you as bait to draw that killer out."

That may have been likely. But after Sakura had heard that conversation between Karasu and his wolf summon, she suddenly wasn't so sure that she was free of suspicion. Perhaps they were waiting for Sakura to slip up on something…

The breakfast room was already busy with other servants that morning. Denji stationed himself against a wall, far away from what he considered the 'common rabble', judging by the contemptuous look on his face as he observed the household staff. Sakura plonked herself down in her usual seat and began eagerly helping herself to wads of toast and jam and a boiled egg or two. She so enjoyed her food that it was almost enough to make her forget how trapped she was, and how badly she needed to be _elsewhere_ right now, and how Kakashi had betrayed the village and how she was now expecting the child of a traitor who would probably be just as bad as the rest of this rotten clan, and_ god _ was there anything better than hot, soggy toast?

Himiko sat down next to her, as had been her usual place since Sakura had arrived. "You look hail today," she commented. "I'm glad your ordeal hasn't affected your appetite."

It took Sakura moment to realise she was referring to the supposed attack against her. But to be honest, she'd killed enough people in her ten years as a ninja to move on quickly. Though she realised an ordinary servant girl would be nowhere near as hardened.

"It's all I can do to hold it down," she told Himiko shakily, as if the trauma was still fresh in her mind.

"Poor thing."

"Sakura, Sakura!" Kaoru tugged on her sleeve. "Don't look over – but Haru is totally eyeing you up!"

Sakura looked over. "Who?"

"I said don't look! Haru – the boy from the mews! He's _so_ cute! You're so lucky! _I hate you._"

The boy in question looked away quickly when Sakura's gaze found him, and while he _was_ cute, Sakura felt nothing. She had much bigger problems in her life right now that she had no time for silly little crushes from stable boys. Besides, in a couple of months, he probably wouldn't want to look twice at her.

She reached for her drink to wash her toast down, but as she brought the glass to her lips, she caught the smell of it. It stank of overly sweet fruits that made Sakura quickly set it down as her stomach rolled in warning. In her distracted state, she barely thought anything of it, other than perhaps she'd been poured fruit juice by mistake instead of water.

"Can I have some of your water?" she asked Kaoru, who nodded absently, as she was still watching the bird boy with hawk eyes.

"Why do girls with pink hair always have more fun?" the brown haired girl demanded of Sakura. "If I dye my hair pink, do you think he'd notice me?"

"Kaoru, you're beautiful as it is," Sakura told her. "He's probably only staring at me because I have jam on my chin."

Kaoru glanced at her. "You don't have jam on your chin."

"I do have an enormous boil though."

Kaoru giggled and pretended to point it out.

On Sakura's other side, Himiko began coughing. Sakura thought nothing of this either for a moment, until the bench rocked and the older woman fell back with a crash that jarred the whole table. Confused silence suddenly descended. Sakura glanced round to see Himiko convulsing on the floor.

"Oh, god, someone help!" Yui, who'd been sitting on Himiko's other side was the first to spring to her feet and crouch down next to the retainer. "Get the doctor!"

_Isn't that me_? Sakura thought in dawning horror as everyone suddenly rose to their feet, unsure of what to do. Her instinct to give medical assistance was so strong that she was on her knees and reaching out to apply her chakra before she realised what she was doing. And she _couldn't_. There was no way she could help this woman without revealing her talents and exposing herself as something obviously more than a maid.

Himiko's eyes rolled, her face had turned an alarming shade of white, and she looked like she was choking. With tears in her eyes, all Sakura could do was say, "turn her on her side – quick!"

"What's happening?" Kaoru demanded in a quavering, confused voice.

At that point the woman vomited. Several people recoiled, including Yui who was nearest, but Sakura leant forward with a knitted brow.

That smell. The strange, sickly sweet fruity one… she knew it.

Looking back at the table she spotted the drink she had rejected earlier, only it was now half empty and standing next to Himiko's plate. She must have taken it by accident, thinking it was hers. And only now did Sakura realise her deadly error.

"Poison," she said hoarsely. "I think she's been poisoned."

Yui frantically stroked Himiko's hair, her face just as pale. "Why would anyone poison Himiko-san?" she asked in anguish. Of course, the obvious answer was that no one would.

The drink had been Sakura's after all.

* * *

Dokko arrived in a place he didn't know, where tiny ancient trees only a few feet tall grew in clumps nearby and a pond of clear, clear green shone to his right. It certainly wasn't the Cat Valley where he returned normally when his summoner released him. This miniature forest was somewhere else entirely.

And the forest wasn't the only miniature thing there. A few metres before him sat a little panting pug in a blue jacket. He had the most terribly wrinkly face. At the sight of him, Dokko bristled. A dog. And not just _any_ dog either.

"You," he hissed at the pug.

"Pakkun," supplied Pakkun.

As if Dokko would ever forget. "There had better be a good reason for you summoning me like this," he said, bristling.

"Is there a hairball you need to get back to?"

The cat sniffed and stood up to stretch. "I'm sure I'm kept you from licking your own testicles long enough, so I'll just be on my way-"

"I have a message for Wild Orchid," the pug said.

"I told you, her name is _Sakura_." Why did dogs have to be so weird? It was tempting to hiss and tell the ugly creature to bite him, but considering the nature of the relationship between their two species, Dokko thought this might be tempting fate. "And I'm under orders not to tell you anything, so you're just wasting your time here."

"I don't want information, I was told to give it. It won't cost you anything to hear me out, will it?" Pakkun told him.

"Well," Dokko preened, "your stench alone is a hazard to my delicate health. I have no reason to hear your message anyway. I won't be delivering it."

"Why not?"

"Because her life is in great danger and one wrong step now – such as being seen with a nekonin like myself – would be the end of her," Dokko said.

Pakkun cocked his head and stopped panting. "That would be a shame. She makes very nice cat-flavoured biscuits."

"She does _not_ make cat flavoured biscuits," said an appalled Dokko. "She makes _mouse_ flavoured biscuits, actually."

"I'm _sure._ But why exactly is her life in danger?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Dokko said, his tail swishing angrily from side to side. "Your kind is the whole problem."

Pakkun blinked. "My kind?"

"Wolves."

"They're not my kind. Dogs and wolves are quite different actually."

"Perhaps. I'm not sure you're even classifiable as a dog. More like a rodent, maybe."

"But I don't see how wolves are that dangerous…" Pakkun continued.

"Oh, not _those_ kinds of wolves, dog-brain. The summoned kind – one of the white wolf clans. You should know it! The one allied to the Hatake clan."

"And what are _they_ doing about?"

"Making a nuisance of themselves obviously."

"And Sakura's in trouble with them because…?"

"Because she killed one of your master's kin, didn't she?"

Pakkun's watery eyes blinked once or twice as the dog went very still. "Oh," was all he said, and in the next moment he had vanished in a small mushroom cloud of dust.

Dokko sat back on his haunches with an angry hiss. Well, what good would the knowledge do the dog anyway? Even if he was at Hatake Kakashi's side now, spilling his guts about the death of his family member, it wouldn't make any difference. By now Sakura would surely have found a way to escape the estate and would be journeying back to Konoha this very moment. Soon that traitor would have nowhere to hide.

As for Dokko, he would have to go back to the Valley of the Cats and wait until Sakura next summoned him. He hoped there _would_ be a next time, at least. It wouldn't do for his favourite human to wind up dead.

* * *

Sakura was almost in too much a state of shock to remember how she'd ended up in Lord Zuru's private chambers. She'd felt so useless and small in the servants' dining room, desperate to heal Himiko but unable to with so many people squashed around them. The doctor had arrived and Himiko had been taken away, then Sakura vaguely remembered Denji taking her arm and now she was here.

She looked around in a daze. Lady Zuru was a weeping heap of distress next to her moon window, then there was Lord Zuru who paced the far wall restlessly. Several high ranking retainers dotted the room around its edges, and then there was Karasu again, standing before the mat where Sakura knelt, thumbing his chin as he looked down at her with deep thought.

The last time she'd sat before him under such scrutiny was yesterday, and she'd assumed by now that she would have made good on her escape plan. But it seemed that she was only right back where she started, only now there really did seem to be someone making attempts on her life… and poor Himiko had been caught in the crossfire.

But what did it mean? Did they know she was a spy? Was their manner of execution just a quiet poisoning one morning at breakfast? Sakura doubted it. They weren't looking at her now like enemies eyeing up a treacherous snitch. They seemed just as confused as Sakura.

"I count that as two," Karasu said eventually. "Two attempts on your life. This is turning into quite the mystery."

Technically, it was the first unprovoked attempt on her life, but Sakura refrained from correcting him.

"Is Himiko-san going to be ok?" she whispered, hoping the doctor was nearly half as competent as she was with poisons and antidotes.

"Mm." Karasu hummed. "Probably not."

Lady Zuru gave a wretched croak of grief, making Sakura glance over at her. Sakura supposed that in a place and a station like this, your personal retainer was the closest thing you had to a best friend sometimes. The normally icy, stoic woman was heartbroken and Sakura felt deeply for her, particularly since Himiko of all people had done nothing to deserve getting mixed up in this mess. She'd been nothing but kind to Sakura, and this was how Sakura had repaid her.

"What I'm curious about most, I think," Karasu went on dispassionately, finding Lady Zuru's sobs easy to ignore, "is why you've been targeted at all. I thought at first that with the assailant yesterday that maybe you interrupted a spy who was targeting _me_ and mine. But then other thoughts occurred to me, and I have to admit my deception yesterday... I didn't expect you to be targeted again. Not by any spy targetting my clan at least. So this incident of _poisoning_ troubles me. It doesn't follow the expected pattern. In fact, I have to wonder if this last incident has anything to do with the first at all. And I wonder if this even has anything to do with the Hatake clan?"

Sakura seriously hoped he didn't think that. She barely understood what was going on herself, so he couldn't very well expect her to explain anything to him.

Karasu tilted his head to smile down at her in a strange, soft way that wasn't even remotely as friendly as it pretended to be. "Or perhaps, I'm mistaken. Perhaps the two incidents are related. Perhaps it _does_ have everything to do with my clan."

There was intent in those eyes, like a wolf closing in on prey. Sakura blinked back. There was no need to act scared, she _was_ scared. He knew something about her and he was going to expose it _now_.

Swiftly he crouched down and pointed a finger at her body. "The child you're carrying," he asked. "Whose is it?"

Lady Zuru's sobs ceased and her head snapped around to glare at Sakura as if she'd committed some unspeakable offence. It wasn't really until later that Sakura realised why this revelation so horrified the woman.

Sakura placed a hand over her belly, as if trying to shield it from view. She didn't understand why this was relevant to the situation at hand. "I…it's no one's."

"Unless you're trying to tell me it was an immaculate conception, that child has a father. Who is he?" The intent was there, and wolves were tireless and undeterred. Sakura saw he already knew the answer.

Fear climbed her throat and she desperately wished she could stop time because there was no way to stop what was coming now.

The leader of the Hatake clan straightened and folded his arms. "Do you have any idea how sensitive a wolf's nose is?"

Sakura shook her head faintly. She really didn't.

"They have around two hundred million scent receptors in their noses. With one skin flake they can track a man for miles in any weather, and with one sniff they can tell where a person has been, what they've been doing, and how they feel. They can tell when you're scared, when you're angry… when you're hiding something. They can even detect very slight changes in your body chemistry, whether it's your first cancerous cells or your first week of pregnancy. How about that then? Makes you glad they can't talk right? Well, unfortunately for you, mine _can_."

It was only now that it began to dawn on Sakura how wide open she'd been since the moment she'd sat in the same room as that she-wolf. It had sniffed her. No doubt it had plenty to tell Karasu afterwards…

"You see, not only can wolves detect your pregnancy, they can pretty much tell _who_ it belongs to. Because that child is a Hatake through and through."

Sakura's mouth ran dry and she shook her head again, more weakly than before.

"Oh, don't play dumb, it's grating," Karasu said shortly. "This has been bothering me all night, you know. It's clear that you are certainly several weeks along, but my clan only arrived here last week, so while we luckily can't be accused of fiddling indecently with our honoured host's household staff, it _does_ open the question as to how on earth you came to be acquainted to one of my clan?"

"N-no, I've never…" she whispered. He was trying to trap her. He already knew she was from the fire country and knew exactly which Hatake had gotten her pregnant, but he was determined to make her say it in order to have a legitimate reason to slit her throat in front of everyone. He wanted to know she was from Konoha, so that he could prove her a liar, and therefore almost certainly a Konoha spy.

"Girl, _what _is the name of the man who fathered that child?" Karasu demanded, with the triumph of the wolf taking the final leap. Sakura looked desperately around the room, her gaze crossing Lady Zuru's pale, damp face.

Inspiration struck.

"I-I'm sorry. I don't understand why you think someone from your clan is responsible," she said, faking a quiver or two. "Toshio-sama… he did this. It was Toshio-sama."

To Sakura's surprise, Karasu straightened with pure satisfaction. Behind him, Lady Zuru gave a shriek of rage and grabbed the edge of the window as if she wanted to tear the wall apart and throw it at Sakura. Lord Zuru gripped her shoulders to calm her, but his own were incredibly tense as if he was thinking of throwing his wife at Sakura too.

Karasu circled the room behind Sakura with an almost cheerful smile. "There we have it then," he said to no one in particular. "It seems our little Toshio has been busily spreading the seeds of Zuru joy among your staff. If you want someone to blame for these incidents and the poor fate of your retainer, Lady Zuru, I suggest you look to within your own house. Perhaps for once you can't blame the Hatake clan for your misfortunes."

Belatedly Sakura realised that this was what he'd expected all along. The only Hatake he thought Sakura had been acquainted with was Toshio, and if she was carrying the child of the Zuru's heir, all his problems suddenly belonged to someone else. As far as he was concerned, this was why she was being targeted.

She could see his interest in her had now evaporated and she was as good as invisible in this room. It was almost enough to breathe a sigh of enormous relief if she hadn't looked once again to the Lord and Lady Zuru and realised that in the process of saving herself from one fire, she'd thrown herself into another. Those two did _not_ appreciate the thought of becoming grandparents… least of all if the mother was a lowly servant. They didn't want any child of _hers _having a claim of their estate.

Now Sakura knew she had to get out of there doubly soon. Servant girls who got pregnant by noble heirs got _murdered _over things like this.

She wondered if it wasn't too late to raise her hand and change her confession.

A knock sounded at the door.

Karasu roused himself from his self-satisfied daydream. He glanced at Sakura. "Yes, I suppose you may go," then he shouted, as if it was his own chamber and not Lord Zuru's, "Come in!"

One of the doormen who Sakura rarely saw outside the entrance hall or the courtyard entered the chamber with a deep bow. "Zuru-sama," he said reverently. "Another guest has arrived."

"We're not expecting anyone," Lord Zuru snapped in answer. "Tell them to go away."

"Who is it?" Karasu asked.

The doorman seemed inclined to obey the latter. "He says his name is Hatake Kakashi, sir. He wants to know if he's too late for breakfast."

* * *

Chapter Next: _Deep into the Forest_


	16. Deep into the Forest

**House of Crows**

Chapter Fifteen: Deep into the Forest

* * *

_Now that you know I'm trapped,_

_Sense of elation._

* * *

Kakashi stopped at the end of the overgrown road and observed the water stained gateway before him, along with the two grinning statues of forest spirits on either side of it. Ahead lay a curving path dappled by sunlight sparkling through the rain and just beyond that he could make out the first few buildings of the estate. Somewhere nearby, a rough _thwack_ing sound could be heard. Rain in the rain country rarely deterred these people from their work.

"Well, Pakkun," he murmured to his favourite ninken. "This is the place."

"If she has a scratch of sense, she'll already be halfway back to Konoha by now."

"If that girl had a scratch of sense, she wouldn't have come here in the first place."

With a little shrug to shake off the rain that had gathered on his hood and cloak, Kakashi stepped forward over the threshold.

"No riff-raff through the main-"

Kakashi turned and the gardener, who'd been busy taming some ivy on the other side of the wall, fell quiet. He didn't need to see Kakashi's face. He only saw the pale hair and the dark eye before he pointed his sheers up the path. "Nevermind. If you're one of them."

"Seems that way." Kakashi looked around. "This is a beautiful garden."

The man just grunted and returned to his work. _Thwack. Thwack. Thwack._

"But you missed a spot."

The thwacking stopped abruptly, but Kakashi had already turned away down the path, happy to finally be covering the last leg of his journey.

The sounds of the gardener faded, and into view came the cobbled courtyard he remembered well, bracketed by mews and servant accommodations, before ending at the entrance of the main mansion itself. Even if the miserable weather had driven everyone inside and this courtyard was completely deserted, it didn't _feel_ deserted. As Kakashi crossed the cobbles towards the steps of the entrance, he felt like a hundred eyes watched his progress. Even Pakkun felt it, and crowded to Kakashi's heel more than necessary.

A young boy erupted from one of the doorways to his right in such a way that suggested he'd been pushed, and he scurried reluctantly towards Kakashi through the rain. The man and dog stopped and looked at him expectantly.

"What do you want?" the young servant demanded, holding his coat up over his head. Rain country people weren't exactly a friendly bunch, but with this weather it was understandable. Before Kakashi could even open his mouth the boy finally got a good look at his face. He went pale. "Oh, shit, you're one of them…"

"Hatake Kakashi," agreed Kakashi. "I'm here to see Hatake Karasu, if he's in."

Pakkun sneezed.

"And this is Pakkun," Kakashi added. "Are we too late for breakfast?"

"Uh – I'll ask," the boy was already running away from him at breakneck speed towards the entrance of the estate's mansion. "I'll tell them you're here, sir!"

Kakashi followed at the same pace as before, squinting up ahead as the boy ran up to someone standing in the doorway, gesturing emphatically towards the new arrivals. They both disappeared inside, and that prickly feeling of being _watched_ seemed to grow.

"Pakkun," Kakashi said softly as they neared the steps and saw people moving around the foyer, looking out at them. "You'll have to start without me. I have a feeling I'll be held back a while."

"Will you be alright facing them on your own?" the pug asked dubiously.

Kakashi ignored the question. "Just find her. Do whatever you need to do. And _don't_ be caught."

Pakkun sighed and darted away, running into the shadows of the mews alongside them and disappearing round a corner to begin his search. Alone, Kakashi continued. He drew to a stop at a polite distance from the foot of the entrance steps and looked up.

Karasu, flanked by three white-haired men, looked back.

"Well, isn't this a surprise?" the leader of the Hatake clan said, unsmiling. "Actually, I lie. I'm sure we smelt your stink coming for days. Does that little blonde hokage of yours know you're here?"

Ignoring the rain, Kakashi tipped back his hood and eased the heavy backpack onto the ground beside him. "That's a relief. For a moment there I thought you'd be pleased to see me."

"Who'd be pleased to see you?" Karasu swept his gaze up and down him. "You look like someone chewed you up and spat you out. I hope you're not planning on inflicting us with your presence-"

He as interrupted by a short, sharp scream, as someone small and fair-haired bolted past him. The fast blur careened down the steps to smash into Kakashi, knocking the wind from him and forcing him to grab her and spin to keep his balance. "You're back!" Reika cried, squeezing him so tight he could barely breathe. "You're really back! Oh my god – I had a dream about you last night, and now you're here, how weird is that? Did you miss me?"

Kakashi laughed slightly and patted the top of her head. "I missed you," he said.

"She always ruins it," said Karasu, coming down the steps behind her. He took the girl by the ear and peeled her away from Kakashi. "Let him breathe. The poor guy looks like he's about to drop dead."

Kakashi was released by Reika, only to be pulled into a strong embrace by Karasu who'd finally lost his straight face and was smiling almost as widely as Reika. Unable to help it, Kakashi felt a smile tug at his own lips as he clapped the other man on the back.

"I was only kidding. You smell like a rose," Karasu said near his ear.

"Then I _definitely_ need a bath," Kakashi responded.

"Out of the rain, out of the rain!" Reika shooed them up the steps and into the entrance hall where dozens of other clan members waited to greet him. Kakashi stood, absorbing the pats on his shoulders and the hands ruffling his hair. There was Kano, Jobei, Minoru, and Seiji and Teiji. Yoshiro and Shoda and Renji and Takashi. Kakashi knew them all but lost track of whose hand was messing up his hair after a while. Reika ordained, not letting anyone hog him for too long while she herself hung on his arm, frequently asking him if he'd brought her a present.

"Is seeing me not enough of a gift by itself?" he asked her.

She thought for a moment. "No."

He patted her on the head again. "Don't worry, I may have brought a new jutsu to teach you."

A murmur of interest echoed around him. A new jutsu wasn't always a momentous occasion, but Kakashi picked up so many new techniques between visits that he was bound to have at least _one_ that was interesting, if not otherwise completely useless. "What kind?" Reika asked eagerly.

"I shouldn't spoil the surprise," he said evasively.

"You shouldn't spoil her either," Karasu reminded him darkly. "I have some questions for you, but I suppose they can wait. Go take a bath, you vagrant. Afterwards we can talk about why you're here – I assume it's business, not pleasure?"

"Can't it be both?" Kakashi asked.

A faint smile touched Karasu's face. "Go on. Bath. The servants will take care of your things."

"I'll help wash your back!" Reika declared, but Karasu took her by the scruff of her kimono and held her at bay.

"Go," he said. "I'll hold her off for as long as I can."

"Hey, that's rude…" Reika pouted.

"You can molest him later, come on," Karasu told his younger cousin, leading her away. Over his shoulder he cast Kakashi one last half curious, half amused look.

Separating him from the rest of his clan, Kakashi took the corridor that would lead through to the other side of the mansion where the bathhouse would be found. He didn't need a servant to show him the way, because he knew the main layout of this place like he knew the cracks on his ceiling back in Konoha. He also didn't need a servant because he wasn't actually going to the bathhouse at all.

* * *

Sakura hurried through the corridors of the undercroft, looking over her shoulder every three paces and nearly bumping into another member of staff with every four. She was no longer being followed, which came as a mixed relief. With the 'revelation' that the attempts on her life were not about the Hatake clan, she had cheerfully been left to her own devices. Karasu probably thought the Zuru family had been the ones trying to bump her off, and so his interests had turned elsewhere.

And that was all very well and good _for him_, but Sakura was now faced with the reality that someone in this house had tried to kill her. The who and why didn't much matter at this point, because coupled with the news that Kakashi was _here_, Sakura was very certain she had to get the hell out of this place without any further delay.

But was it already too late?

As soon as Kakashi's name had been announced in Lord Zuru's chamber, Sakura had all but been booted out… but not before witnessing Karasu's smile – one so markedly more genuine than anything he'd given to Sakura that she knew instantly this wasn't the arrival of her knight in shining armour.

No doubt Kakashi was on his way through the house and perhaps it would only be a matter of mere minutes before he met with Karasu and revealed to him the identity of his spy. Karasu would probably kick himself to know how she'd sat before him like a complacent little maid only moments earlier.

Her head-start would be virtually non-existent, but she had to try. Hopefully she had a few tricks that would hide her trail and would allow her to get as far away as the nearest town before anyone caught up with her. She would at least be able to send a message to Tsunade if all else failed. Even if she couldn't make it back to Konoha, her death wouldn't be in vain.

_No,_ Sakura thought, conscious of the extra weight she now carried, _I'm not going to die. I can't_.

She arrived back in the room she shared with the other girls and wasn't at all surprised to find no one there. Usually at this time of day they would be working, although today they were probably with Himiko. Sakura felt a pang of worry, ashamed that she couldn't stick around to offer her assistance for an incident she strongly felt was her own fault for not recognising her aversion to the drink for what it was – finally honed instincts after many years of being force-fed the stuff in order to raise her immunity. For now she could only hope that the doctor knew what he was doing, though she'd probably never find out what had become of Himiko.

Sakura swiftly began loading her bag with as many provisions as she could and dumped others that she wouldn't need. Clothing could be left, along with a few valuables that contributed nothing but weight. She filled her canteen with water from the bathroom and then went to sort through her private food stash. Worryingly, she knew there wouldn't be enough to sustain her – perhaps for an eight hour trip north to Amegakure, but not across the border to the east. She would have to stop by the pantry, even if raiding it in broad daylight would raise a few eyebrows and a few more suspicions. But if anyone tried to stop her, they'd have a nice knuckle sandwich to chew on. She'd be gone before anyone brought it to the attention of Lord Zuru or Hatake Karasu.

Swinging the pack over her shoulder, she hurried from the room –

And straight into the path of a small pug.

Sakura froze. Pakkun did the same, and for a moment they just stared at one another in surprise.

It was safe to say that, initially, gut reaction got the better of her and she was flooded with relief and joy to see his familiar wrinkly face before her. Here was the dog who had found her as she lay slowly freezing to death on a mountainside after being separated from the team. Here was the dog she had baked biscuits for, and teased him by claiming they were cat flavoured. Here was the dog who had always been on her side when a disagreement occurred between her and Kakashi. She'd been in this place for so long and been so alone that she felt elated to see him.

But this feeling came slowly crashing down as she remembered whom he represented, and how warily he was regarding her, as if wondering whether to fight or take flight.

He cleared his throat. "Where are you going, Sakura?" he asked.

"Pakkun, just stay out of my way," she warned, her fingers clutching the strap of her backpack so tightly the beds of her nails were turning white.

"Sakura," he cajoled, trotting a few steps toward her.

"I _will _hurt you!" she told him sharply.

He stopped and sighed. "I thought you might," he said heavily, and then like Dokko he vanished into thin air.

Sakura cursed vividly under her own breath and looked around. Perhaps she only had seconds before Pakkun fetched Kakashi…

As fast as she could – which perhaps wasn't as fast as she used to be – she turned around and hurried away down the corridor. She would take the long way to the kitchens, down paths and hidden nooks that she was less likely to meet Kakashi down. She passed Yui and Aki down one of the busier corridors of the undercroft who both turned to watch her streak away with exasperation. "_Now_ where's she going?" Yui bemoaned.

Sakura darted down a set of steps, and then through a series of interconnecting storage rooms. She came out in a concealed corridor for the servants that ran underneath one of the main corridors in the heart of the house, but no one came down here much as it was so far away from the normal hub of servant activity. Down this corridor and through the next lay the secondary pantry where the preserved food was kept. It was normally secure and padlocked, but one of the first jutsu Sakura had ever learned was how to force a lock. She took it in hand and channelled her chakra as she'd done a thousand times before… although maybe it was an extra hard lock or perhaps it was just stress was making her lose focus, but it seemed to take a little longer than she expected to jog her chakra into the right places.

She had no time to question the delay. The lock snapped apart and once inside she began cramming her backpack with as much food as it could hold. She'd need it all for the long journey back, as it hadn't escaped her notice that she was eating a hell of a lot more these days…

As soon as she was suitably laden with the appropriate cans and packets of soup, and fish, and fruit, she turned back, ready to make good her escape.

She was just circling round the corner near the stairs she'd used when a short scream from above made her freeze. Rapid footsteps clattered across the boarded ceiling, followed by a heavy thud that made her jump. Was it the twins just messing around? It didn't sound like their young girlish screams. Was it the servants? Sometimes even the older staff members acted pretty juvenile when the main family was out of the way… but if her memory served her correctly, the room above was the library, a place where screaming and running was strictly forbidden.

Sakura hovered in indecision. She had to keep moving if she wanted to escape. But what if someone needed help…?

"Damn it…" she grunted, and immediately made for the nearest set of stairs leading up into the house.

The corridor she came out in was unfamiliar, and it took her a moment to get her bearings. The library was opposite, but where was the entrance? Left or right? Sakura once again paused in hesitation.

Then came another quieter cry and a sob that seemed to come from her left, and she rushed off again, dropping her pack as it became increasingly clear to her that the sounds were of distress. _There!_ She rounded a corner and saw the archway leading into the library directly ahead. She sped up, but an iota of precaution made her pause in the doorway to look before she leapt through.

A flurry of movement near one of the tables within caught her eye, and immediately she recognised Toshio's back. His low, angry tone seemed to fill the room while still remaining too quiet to make out the words. Trapped against the table in front of him was a woman, though Sakura only recognised her when Toshio raised his hand and began smacking her repeatedly over the head.

_Kaoru._ The poor girl yelped and cowered, but didn't lift a finger to fend him off. She wouldn't… not while he was a noble heir and she was a low-ranking servant.

For the first time with Toshio, Sakura really saw red. Something snapped inside and she felt hot and incredibly alive, and she knew she was going to enjoy smacking that stupid man's head twice as hard as he was smacking Kaoru. She couldn't be stopped now. Not when she had absolutely nothing left to lose from giving this malicious little maggot every ounce of justice he deserved.

Sakura took one decisive step forward and opened her mouth to shout –

A hand clapped over it, silencing her. Another gripped her arm. Before she could gasp in surprise she was jerked sideways and away from the doorway, spun like a duck-footed ballerina. She tottered, confused. The moment the hands left her mouth and released her arm, she whirled to give her accoster a razor sharp piece of her mind.

When she realised who it was, her voice died.

"Don't be a righteous little idiot," Kakashi whispered harshly, giving her shoulder a stern push. "Get out of here."

Sakura couldn't move. There were a precious few seconds where Kakashi just looked at her and she stared back while she tried to think of what to say, then he sighed and marched into the library without another word.

"I'm not an idiot…" she hissed, too late, as if the brain freeze that had locked her thoughts now melted away as soon as he was gone. She heard him speak inside the library, that soft, low voice that she only now realised how much she missed and feared in equal amounts. Something drew tight in her chest. She remembered where she was and where she should be – ideally, somewhere very far away from this place.

"I'm sorry," she heard him say, "I didn't mean to interrupt anything, I was just wondering if this library happened to have the Icha Icha collection in stock…"

He said more – a lot more – a constant flow of inane words into a suddenly silent library, and he was still talking when Kaoru flew out of the doorway in a mess of blind tears and dishevelled hair. Sakura quickly caught the girl in her arms as she stumbled unseeing into her, and right then she knew for the time being that she was stuck here. She couldn't abandon Kaoru in this state.

"Sakura," Kaoru looked up at her with large eyes smudged with dark makeup. "What are you doing here?"

There wasn't much relief in her expression to have been seen this way by Sakura. But with her clothes looking as if they were halfway to being pulled off, Sakura knew she had to be glad to have escaped the library. Once again, anger boiled dangerously close to the surface, and Sakura had to clamp down on it silently. "Come on," she said quietly to Kaoru and together they hurried down the corridor Sakura had come down.

As she ushered her down the same stairs she'd used, Sakura remembered to collect her backpack and shoot the entrance of the library one last look. Kakashi was no longer in sight, so she released one last pent-up sigh before pulling the panel door shut behind her and descended the stairs.

Kaoru was waiting at the bottom, awkwardly trying to straighten her clothes and rearrange her hair. "I thought you were summoned to Lord Zuru's chamber," she said, trying hard to strike a more normal tone.

"I was," Sakura said, helping her smooth her rumpled apron.

"Do you have any idea who did that to Himiko-san?" Kaoru asked.

But Sakura could only shake her head. "No, I'm sorry."

"You were the target though, right?" Kaoru went on, making it obvious she was determined to say nothing about what had just taken place in the library. "Who would want to hurt you? I mean, apart from Yui?"

Sakura shook her head again. "I don't know," even though she could think of a fair few reasons why several people in this household might want her dead, ranging from any member of the Hatake family who hated spies, to any member of the Zuru family, who hated surprise heirs.

"Kaoru," she said, taking the other girl's shoulder. "Are you ok?"

"Am I ok?" she repeated, slightly hysterically. "You're the one who's had two attempts made on her life! Toshio is just… Toshio. Don't make a big deal, Sakura."

Slightly chastised, Sakura withdrew her hand and had to wonder just how many times Kaoru had been through this.

"Although," the brunette continued, "I'm glad that man was there. I don't know who he was… I mean, he's obviously one of the Hatake clan, but I don't think I've seen him around before. Was he with you?"

Sakura quickly shook her head. "No, I've never seen him before either," she fibbed.

"Normally people don't bother to intervene," Kaoru whispered. "I hope he doesn't get into trouble… I hope Toshio doesn't decide to take it out on me later."

"Kaoru, why don't you just leave?" Sakura pleaded. "You don't _have_ to put up with this."

But Kaoru only looked at her as if she was out of her mind. "Where would I go? This is the best money I'll ever get, and one day I'll probably be promoted to be the personal retainer for one of the twins, and then I'll be like Himiko-san, and everything will be ok. And if you think it's so desperate here that _I _should leave, what about you? Why don't you leave before he does it to you too?"

Sakura swallowed. "He already did," she said, feeling uncomfortable in her semi-lie before a girl who had suffered the real thing. "A while ago."

"But you're not leaving either, are you?" Her eyes drifted over Sakura's shoulder and immediately she frowned to notice the strap of her backpack. "Or… maybe you are?"

"Don't worry about this," Sakura said, for lack of any real explanation. "Let's just go back to the dorm, ok?"

The two girls slipped through the dark underground passages, which Kaoru seemed to know better than Sakura, and before long they were back in the warm, cosy room they shared with Aki and Yui. Kaoru looked at her image in the mirror with a fretful expression. "I need to shower," she said quietly.

"There's fresh towels in the cupboard," Sakura informed her. She could sense that in truth Kaoru wanted to be alone. She was the kind of girl who only survived by pretending everything was alright, and having Sakura play witness to her humiliation was making her deeply uncomfortable, so Sakura reluctantly let her go.

Was there still time to wreak her revenge? Sakura could concoct a poison that could paralyse a man from the waist down. A fatal poison might be more practical, but that was too merciful. Toshio should live and suffer, but never be able to harm another woman again.

_But there was no time_.

Kakashi had arrived, he knew she was here, and soon he'd come for her.

Sakura lifted the backpack to her shoulders and opened the shoji doors to step out onto the verander. As usual, there wasn't a soul to be seen, so Sakura slipped on her comfiest shoes and began walking.

* * *

If looks could kill, Kakashi would be a withered corpse by now.

"So I take it, that's a no?" he drawled.

"I've never heard of this author 'Jiraiya'." Toshio said stonily.

"Pity. They were best sellers, and if you have first edition copies they'll be worth a small fortune now considering the great man has now, sadly, passed on."

"This is very interesting," Toshio said with even greater impatience.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Kakashi looked around and noticed that they were alone in the library. The small, dishevelled maid had disappeared promptly the moment he'd arrived to distract her master, and now he felt he'd given her ample enough time to gain some distance. "Well I'll leave you to your books. Thank you for your help."

Kakashi swept from the library and wasn't at all surprised to find Sakura had vanished. He made a short hand seal and at his feet, Pakkun reappeared.

"You lost her," the dog remarked obviously.

"Thank you," Kakashi said dryly. "I need you to track her."

"I figured. This way then."

The scent trail must have been strong as Pakkun set off at a fair run down the corridor. He came to a stop at a concealed panel door upon which was painted an ornate dragon, and Kakashi pulled it aside to reveal the stairs.

"Down here," Pakkun said, as he scurried off down the dark steps. "She was with another girl… smells upset."

They passed through numerous long underground corridors, most of which were empty, some of which were in use by servants. At one point they turned a corner to find a gang of young scullery maids laughing and shrieking and throwing a ball to each other. They stopped dead when Kakashi appeared, evidently recognising either him or his colouring.

"Hatake-sama," said a pale one with panic written all over her face. "Are you lost? This isn't a fit place for guests…"

Kakashi brushed past them without a second glance, following Pakkun as he darted through a side room and up another set of stairs. They arrived in a quiet wing of the house which Kakashi guessed was where most of the household servants slept. Pakkun drew up to one particular closed door and had a good sniff. "The scent trail ends here," he told Kakashi. "The upset girl seems to have come and gone, but Sakura's still in there, I think."

"Good." Without hesitation, Kakashi pushed open the door…

…and was confronted with the sight of another set of screen doors that opened out onto a green bamboo forest. Sakura clearly hadn't stuck around.

"Shit," he swore.

The initiative pug quickly bounded across to the veranda and began walking in circles, trying to pick up the scent again. For a moment it seemed like he would go left… then he seemed to think she'd gone right. He wandered a little into the forest and waddled in a few more circles while Kakashi stood, watching him impatiently. Then he sighed a deep, low rumble. "I've lost her."

"What do you mean 'you've lost her'?" Kakashi asked. "She must have come this way. You're not sniffing hard enough."

"By all means, you have a go," Pakkun said obligingly.

Kakashi tugged his mask down and carefully scented the air. He could definitely pick up Sakura's soft, warm scent, but it seemed to go nowhere and everywhere at once. His nose wasn't even as good as Pakkun's so he had to grunt grudgingly to Pakkun and replace his mask. "She must have used a jutsu to confuse her scent trail."

"What are you going to do now?" Pakkun asked.

"There's more than one way to track a person," Kakashi told him. "And my eyes are better than yours, so you can leave if you like."

"Alright," said the pug, but he gave Kakashi a deep look of disquiet. "Just be careful, ok? She's already killed one of your pack."

"Thank you for the reminder," Kakashi said heavily.

Behind him, Pakkun vanished in a coil of smoke, and Kakashi pressed on through the trees, watching the ground carefully. For greater accuracy he pushed up the black band over his sharingan and scanned the forest floor for the faintest of impressions and disturbances in the golden leaf litter.

He found it within seconds. Even if the scent trail disconcerted him, there was no hiding the physical trail of her footprints. Once caught, they were easy to follow, and his stride was twice as long as her own so it would only be a matter of minutes…

He crossed a brook, lost the trail for a moment near a crop of rocks on a hillside, and then found it again a few moments later leading east. She was making a beeline for the border. Either she'd forgotten all he'd taught her about misdirection or she figured he already knew exactly where she was going already and was too desperate to care right now.

This was apparently the case, as it wasn't long before Kakashi saw movement through the trees ahead. Bright pink hair and a deep red yukata. He moved silently as he neared her, donning a genjutsu to remain unseen and unheard, and watched as she picked her way quickly over the uneven ground. She kept looking over her shoulder but she never saw him. He made sure of it.

All too soon, however, she appeared to grow tired, and sought out a lumpy mound of moss to sit on that might once have been a tree stump. Kakashi stopped a short distance away and observed her carefully as she sat, clutching her side as if she had a stitch and panting like she'd run an all-day marathon. He hadn't seen her in nearly two months, and he was faintly surprised at the change in her. Last time he'd laid eyes on her, he'd been deeply concerned about the neglect of her own health. In the weeks leading up to his departure, she must have shed a couple of pounds at least, and part of his worry about her taking off on her own mission like this had been fuelled by his belief that without the watchful eyes of her friends, she would fade away to a dangerous extreme.

But now that he saw her, he realised his concern had been for nothing. Her colour was vibrant and she'd even gained some impressive curves he didn't remember her having at all before. Perhaps now he ought to be worried about her letting her weight go too far in the opposite direction…?

He approached slowly and silently until he stood directly before her, still invisible to her eyes. _Unfit_, he noted too, listening to her trying to catch her breath after hardly more than a mile. It was enough to make anyone embarrassed to have been her teacher.

Suddenly Sakura's head lifted in a sharp movement and her hands flew together. "Kai!" she shouted.

A prickling wave like static energy fell around Kakashi in swathes, making him wince and take an unconscious step backwards. From the way Sakura's eyes refocused wearily on his face, he knew his genjutsu had been broken. Her face fell, and her head dropped. The shallow pants escaping her turned to breathy gasps that sounded far too close to sobs for his liking.

At least her senses were still as sharp as ever. Possibly even sharper, since there was no way a ninja of her calibre should have seen through an A-class genjutsu like that one. Deceiving physical appearances aside, he knew he had to be careful around her. If she'd been able to kill one of his relatives, he knew this was not a girl to take lightly right now. He wasn't even sure whether he could trust those were real tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You know," he began, "when I said 'get out of here', I didn't really mean anything like this."

He took a step toward her, and her body bunched with tension. "Just – stay right where you are!" she ground out.

With reluctance he stopped. He didn't exactly blame her, but he hoped he'd never have to see the day when Sakura looked at him that way. "Sakura," he said, aiming for a coaxing tone. "We're friends, remember? Why are you-"

"_Don't_ treat me like I'm an idiot!" she snapped. "I know who you are! I know _what_ you are."

"Ok," he said slowly. "What am I?"

Sakura stared at him with a strange kind of desperation. "You're a Hatake. You're part of the clan that controls the Syndicate. You're _criminals_ trying to destroy Konoha, and you're their informant. I saw the letter in your apartment. I _know_ that you go back with these people almost two decades at least, so don't try and pretend you weren't aware you had family. And I know you blocked my message to Tsunade. Nya told me what you did to her, you bastard."

The confidence in her voice was at odds with the eyes that seemed to be begging him to correct her. He knew that all he had to do was deny it and she'd believe him implicitly. She wanted to. She _needed _to. But now she'd seen too much and she knew too much and lies wouldn't erase that, not even the most carefully crafted ones.

And perhaps she no longer deserved to be lied to.

"You really have no idea, do you?" he sighed. "You have no idea what you've stumbled into."

Her iron resolve wavered visibly. "What?" she demanded guardedly. "Is this some secret plan you've cooked up with the Hokage that you didn't tell me about? Are you a double-agent or something?"

She was even making excuses for him. Kakashi looked down at the pale golden leaf litter between them, finding it difficult to watch her face as he crushed her last hope. "I'm not a double-agent, Sakura. I'm with the syndicate… I have been for a very long time now."

There was nothing but silence for several heartbeats, until she suddenly lurched to her feet. "You don't even try to deny it!" she hissed.

"You said you didn't want me to treat you like an idiot, so I'm hoping you have the maturity to be reasonable here," he retorted.

"Maturity? Should I _not_ be angry that you have _lied_ to everyone all along! You said you had no family – but here it is! Everyone in Konoha has been breaking their backs trying to find who is behind the Syndicate – people have risked and given their lives! And you knew all along! And I _know_ you sabotaged the mission to Jonan! And I understood why you did that to Sasuke now – because you were afraid of how much he knew about the Syndicate! Everything's been a lie! I thought you were my friend and I thought you… but I don't know you at all, do I?"

It was an odd feeling to watch someone who had trusted in him for most of her life begin to lose that trust completely. He remembered when she used to sit by his bedside in hospital, peeling apples for him and threatening to pre-chew them if he didn't get better soon. And he remembered her adorable blush when she'd given him her first completed knitting project – the misshapen yellow scarf with the hole. And he remembered how trusting she'd been when she'd accepted his kisses in that hotel room, before allowing him to take everything he wanted from her body.

Now she'd given up on him.

"Sakura," he said quietly, "Please understand."

She sat on the stump again, her face tight as she refused to look at him. "I don't care," she said hoarsely. "I have absolutely no desire to drag this out, so stop m-mincing about… and…"

That stitch must have been pretty bad to make her stammer and clutch at her stomach like that. One of Kakashi's eyebrows dropped incredulously. "What's the matter with you?" he asked bluntly. "Are you sick?" He was about to ask if that was why she looked so swollen, but he didn't fancy the punch it would earn him.

She gave him a withering half-glance. "It's none of your business," she grunted. "And what do you care? You're about to kill me anyway, aren't you?"

He blinked at her in surprise. "Why would I kill you?"

"Because if you don't, I'm heading straight back to Konoha and telling the Hokage exactly who you are and where to find your clan, and in less than two weeks every one of you will either be dead or imprisoned. Your only hope is to kill me right now."

Kakashi felt his shoulders sag. "Do you think this really changes anything?" he demanded. "Do you think all those years we spent together mean nothing to me that I would kill you the moment you inconvenience me?"

"I'm not inconveniencing you," she argued. "I'm threatening your life!"

"Well, I'm not threatening yours!" he snapped back. "I'd no sooner take your life than I'd take my own. I'm disgusted that you'd even think for a second that I would be capable of such a thing! I could never hurt you."

Sakura's chin stuck out defiantly, but he knew that she believed this at least. "Then you're a fool," she told him quietly.

"How long have you been here?" Kakashi asked her.

She shrugged, giving him the same answer she'd given Karasu. "Almost two months."

"Have you made friends here?"

She gave him a hard stare. "Yes."

"What are their names?"

"Kaoru… Aki… Himiko."

"And do you care about them?"

"I care about _all _my friends."

"Even though you're lying to them, infiltrating their ranks to spy and ultimately bring down their home?" Kakashi prompted.

Sakura turned a pink shade of indignant. He knew she felt guilty, because whatever she felt for her temporary friends here when a hundred fold for himself. "That's different," she protested.

"No, it's not. It's exactly the same. I didn't spend five years training you and eight watching your back of every minute of every day because I didn't _care._"

"Alright!" she cried, shooting to her feet. "I get it! You're a soft spy – just like me! Don't think this means I'll take pity and cover for you!"

He nodded regretfully. "I know that. You could always tell right from wrong. That's why you're so annoying."

She watched him with steely eyes. "Then I'm going," she said firmly, stepping sideways to move past him.

Kakashi's head dropped tiredly. "No, you're not."

Her eyes snapped back to him warily. "You don't have a choice in the matter. I either go, or you kill me right here. Which is it?"

"Neither." He reached out to take her wrist, but she whipped it out of his reach.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"You're coming back to the house with me."

She laughed at him. "No, I'm not."

"It's _you_ that doesn't have the choice, Sakura," he told her harshly. "You are coming back to the house _now,_ and you are going to stay there. You can try and raise a fuss and complain to anyone you like that you are being kept against your will, but then you're free to explain why, and then Karasu will feel free to drag a knife across your throat. So it'll be in everyone's best interests if you go back and keep your mouth shut."

Sakura's fists clenched and unclenched against her apron. "I won't betray Konoha! Not for anyone! Not even for you, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Neither would I," he said seriously. "And I'm not asking you to."

Her laugh was bitter and caustic. "There you go, treating me like an idiot. Do you expect me to believe you? Do you think I'm going to stay here forever so your little secret will always be safe?"

"Just until the time is right…"

"Right. Yes. When your family has prevailed and Konoha has fallen and it doesn't matter who knows what you really are, because there'll be nothing _left_."

Kakashi's temper wore dangerously thin. "If you have to be locked away to keep you safe, then so be it. That's your choice, Sakura; you can stay here and keep your mouth shut or I can just throw you into another dimension where you can talk to no one. Not even yourself."

Sakura's eyes widened. She took a step away from him. "You wouldn't dare…"

"You've left me little choice. You have _no_ idea about anything you've stumbled across. You're nothing but an ignorant little child."

"Don't call me that," she told him fiercely. "You can call me anything you like, but don't call me a child! You have no idea what it's been like for me."

She seemed so battered and so small to him, but he had to concede that she was nothing like a child, even if her grasp of the situation was simplistic and naïve. And she certainly didn't _look_ like a child, he thought, unable to keep his eyes from noticing how the apron knotted under her bust generously emphasised her breasts in a way that her usual vests never did. He had some vague memories of flicking his tongue over the pink bead of her nipple and…

She was no child.

With necessary force, he dragged his gaze away from her disturbingly ample assets and looked back in the direction of the Zuru estate. "Let's go back."

Her arms folded defiantly. "Go back yourself," she snarled.

"Sakura," he warned. "You're coming with me. And if you try to escape again, Bull will drag you back by the scruff of your neck within five minutes."

She just glared at him, daring that he reach out and make her move by force.

"Don't be difficult, Sakura," he chided.

"I'm not submitting myself to a traitor!" she growled. "You said you wouldn't kill me, so that puts you in a very weak position, sensei, because unless you beat me to death, I'm going nowhere with you."

He strode toward her.

Sakura's eyes went wide and she scrambled backwards. "What are you doing?!"

"I said I wouldn't kill you. I didn't say I wouldn't hurt you."

He backed her up until she stumbled over a root and fell against a wide tree trunk. "Yes, you did," she said quickly. "You said you wouldn't hurt me. I remember distinctly!"

"Oh," he said, as if this made any difference to what he was about to do. "In that case…"

"You don't understand!" she squeaked, leaning away as he advanced on her. "I can't go back! Someone's trying to kill…"

He took her face in his hands, forcing her chin up and holding her head steady. The sharingan narrowed and spun faster as it connected with her gaze, and Sakura only had a moment to part her lips and murmur a soft sound of dismay and surprise before she was sliding sideways. Kakashi caught her shoulders before she could fall, and slowly lowered her down to the nest of roots as her head rolled forward and her eyelids dipped shut.

Much better. Why was it that women were invariably easier to cope with when unconscious? She was prettier too, when her features weren't marred with disgust and hate. Kakashi absently groomed her, brushing sweaty locks of hair from around the edges of her face – a face that wasn't nearly as pale and gaunt as he remembered.

"Servitude suits you, it seems," he told her.

At least she wasn't awake to slap him, he thought, as he meticulously removed the straps of her backpack and tossed it into the middle of the clearing. With one precise jutsu he set it alight, and all her valuables went up in flames; food, weapons, and scrolls. He watched the smokeless fire roil and spin, until nothing was left but a pile of ash. Not even a smell was left behind.

She would have trouble organising another escape now.

Carefully he hooked his arms beneath her knees and under her back. The dead weight of her body surprised him, and he grunted as he lifted her up bridal style. "Definitely heavier," he remarked to himself, now _especially _glad she wasn't awake to slap him.

The journey back to the estate seemed twice as far as he remembered, and he imagined by now that his family were probably wondering where the hell he'd disappeared to. Hopefully no one would notice Sakura was also missing, as that would spell trouble for both of them. What he needed right now was time to explain to Sakura about himself, the Syndicate, the war – everything. But time he didn't have, and he felt deeply troubled as he carried Sakura into her room and laid her down on the most likely futon, as if he was leaving perhaps the most important responsibility of his life unfinished.

He knew that when she woke she would undoubtedly attempt another escape. She was too tenacious and bull-headed to do anything else. But with his repertoire of over a thousand jutsu, he knew how to thwart this. A single chakra-infused mark on her body would keep him informed to her whereabouts at all times. If he noticed her escaping, he would make good his threat of setting Bull on her. The enormous dog was as gentle as a lamb, but he was not to be argued with. He really would bring Sakura back like an errant puppy if she tried anything.

The trouble was, where did he put this mark? It would be visible, so it would have to be in place where no one else was likely to see it. He smiled wryly to himself as he chose his spot, and gently rolled her onto her side in order to lift her dress up and over her hips.

He didn't think Sakura would appreciate him stamping his name onto her ass, but he couldn't resist the temptation. There was nothing like hanging upside down on the Hokage monument to spray your initials across the enormous stone forehead of a former Hokage, leaving your mark for the world to see. And there was nothing like rolling over a fire-breathing shrew and inscribing your calling card on one of her best assets.

Even in her fathomless sleep she twitched and groaned, trying to escape the press of his hand. It was always painful to be infused with the invasive chakra of another person, and perhaps she wouldn't be able to sit for a day or two, but at least she wouldn't be able to mistake what he'd done and her inclination to run away would be dampened.

Possibly.

Once finished, he took a moment to admire his handiwork – and the stunning sight of her shapely bottom and thighs, naturally – before quietly snapping her panties back into place and lowering her dress respectfully. A fretful frown tugged at her brow in her sleep, and automatically he reached out to softly stroke her face with his fingers until it faded.

Only then did he straighten. And only then did he realise they were not quite as alone as he'd imagined.

A girl with jet black hair and coal eyes stood in the doorway to the corridor, looking at him expressionlessly. She was one of his clan, he knew that much at least, but from one of the lower houses where ninja talent ran weak and intermittently. He recalled she worked here but he didn't remember her name.

She evidently knew his. "Kakashi-sama," she whispered, half reproachful, half confused. "What are you…?"

Despite having just had his hand down Sakura's drawers, Kakashi didn't think she'd seen anything more incriminating than him kneeling beside her futon. He stood and gave her an impassive look, acting as if nothing at all was out of place.

"Keep an eye on her, please," he told the girl. "I need a bath."

As he swept past the startled girl on his way out of the room, he realised the rest was now very much up to fate.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Pregnant Maid_


	17. The Pregnant Maid

**House of Crows **

Chapter Sixteen: The Pregnant Maid

* * *

_My black eye casts no shadow_

_Your red eye sees nothing_

_Your slaps don't stick_

_Your kicks don't hit_

_So we remain the same_

* * *

"Sakura. Sakura! Wake up."

Sakura woke up, slowly and grudgingly. Someone was shaking her shoulder lightly, and as Sakura gradually became more conscious, she realised it was Aki.

She also realised her ass hurt like hell.

"Mwhat…?" Sakura croaked. She propped herself up on an elbow and reached down to stroke her left buttock. It felt like she'd been kicked by a horse…

"Are you ok?" Aki asked her worriedly.

Was she ok? For a moment Sakura couldn't remember how on earth she'd gotten in this bed – which wasn't even her own bed; it was Kaoru's. The last thing she remembered was running through the forest… having to stop because of a sharp pain in her abdomen…seeing Kakashi and wishing that it had all just been one terrible mistake.

She didn't remember much after her hopes came crashing down. He must have brought her back to this bed himself, and now he expected her to stay put. "I'm ok," she told Aki dubiously.

"You wouldn't wake up," the girl said. "I was worried something had happened again."

"Again?" Sakura echoed.

Aki gave an uncomfortable shuffle of her shoulders. "You know… another attempt on your life?" she pointed out.

"Oh, no… nothing like that," Sakura quickly reassured her. "I was just asleep. You know me… heaviest sleeper in the world!"

"It's the baby, isn't it?" Aki whispered.

Sakura paused, looking at Aki warily. "You know…?"

"Everyone knows, Sakura," the dark-haired girl said wretchedly. "That's why there've been attempts on your life, isn't it? It's the Zuru family. They want you dead."

"Well…"

"You need to get rid of it. Or get out of here somehow. God, I'd kill myself before I'd bring a child of _that_ monster into the world," Aki said savagely.

Sakura tried to sit up properly, but her stinging bottom prevented her. _What was that? _"Maybe you're right," Sakura said absently, as she tried to swivel her head to see if she was bleeding. "Maybe I should resign and get out of here-"

"Oh, no, they won't let you resign," Aki interrupted, grabbing Sakura's shoulders and distracting her from her quest to find out what had happened to her ass. "Sakura, do you have any idea how these things work? They can't let you go. They won't let you out of their sight as long as you're pregnant. What if the child returns one day to claim the estate? That's what they're afraid of."

Sakura stared back at her pale anxious face, unable to feel even half as concerned. It wasn't Toshio's baby anyway. "They'll never hear from me or the baby again," she explained.

The other girl shook her head. "They won't trust that! They'd send assassins after you for sure. They'd send people from _my_ clan. You'd be dead within a week if you left this place, if not less."

This shook Sakura a little. She hadn't foreseen this repercussion of her little fib to the Karasu and the Zuru family. Now not only did she have Kakashi looking to keep her here… she also had the Zuru family themselves wanting to keep a potential heir exactly where they could see it. If she went back and explained earnestly that Toshio was not the father, that might eliminate the Zuru's interest (if she could even get them to believe that now) but it would also mean having to explain how else the baby came to be of the Hatake clan…

Sakura's head dropped into her hand. "Oh, shit…" she said with great feeling.

"You'll be safer if you stay here," Aki advised her. "At least then there's a chance they'll wait it out for you to give birth before making another move. Now that everyone knows, even the Zuru family might think twice."

"Give birth…?" Sakura barely thought that far ahead.

"You know, right? Because if it's a girl, you're not a threat to them anyway..."

Sakura didn't even _think_ of the thing in her stomach in terms of gender. Why did Aki's casual mention of a girl make her want to hyperventilate. The thought of having a daughter scared her. The thought of having a son scared her. That would make her 'Mom' to someone, whereas right now she was just Sakura, a pregnant girl – one person, not two.

Unhappily, she shook her hair. "I have to get out of here."

"But they'll kill you…" Aki warned her.

"After what happened this morning, maybe I'll be killed anyway…"

Could she even escape from here without Kakashi and his ninken being all over her within ten minutes? Even if she evaded them, would she evade Hatake assassins sent by the Zuru family? She'd found out earlier that very day that she couldn't run as far or fast as she used to.

Sakura was quickly learning to hate what this pregnancy was putting her through… but that wouldn't be a first.

"Don't do anything brash, Sakura," said Aki. "At least stay away from the Hatake clan. Especially _that_ one."

"Karasu," Sakura guessed. "I plan to."

"No, it's Hatake Kakashi you need to watch out for," Aki said darkly. "He's the worst of the lot."

Something uncomfortable seemed to brush along her nerves, making it hard to keep still and impassive. Sakura squirmed slightly. "Who?" she said.

Aki didn't seem to believe her. "The one who brought you here. I don't know what he was doing with you before I came in, but avoid him. He's not like the rest of them."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked slowly.

"He's got nothing to gain; nothing lose. The upper house is dangerous at the best of times, but an ousted recluse like that is a law unto himself." Aki brushed her hair behind her ear. "You don't go near a man like that."

Sakura dwelled on this for a moment. "You know him pretty well, huh?"

"Enough to know not to put my foot in anything that involves him," Aki stood up and held out a hand, seemingly deciding this line of conversation was over. "Either way, we're already late for serving dinner, that's why I came to get you. But I'm not sure if you're up to it."

Apart from the sore spot on her ass, Sakura felt remarkably more refreshed than she'd felt in weeks. But, she couldn't be messing around serving dinner to rich snobs when it was urgent she got to Konoha. "I'm feeling really weak, Aki," she lied, putting on a suitably faint voice. "Perhaps I'd better take it easy for the rest of the day…"

"You've been through a lot, I know," Aki nodded. "Perhaps that's best, yes. Me and the girls will check in on you later."

Much later, hopefully.

Sakura flopped down onto the futon and waited for Aki to leave. The moment the door slid shut, she rolled to her feet and began searching around for her backpack. Where was it? She'd taken it with her earlier that day on her first escape attempt, but it didn't seem to have returned with her. Either it was still out there in the middle of the forest, or Kakashi had done something with it in order to stymie further escape attempts. She wouldn't put it past him.

Dammit… this would mean another trip to the pantry. And all her scrolls and medicines and antidotes were gone. She _needed_ those.

"That bastard…" she muttered to herself, and decided once and for all to find out what on earth he'd done to her ass. In front of the mirror she turned and unceremoniously began hoisting her yukata up and her panties down.

When she saw the neatly printed name marking her flesh, she nearly screamed.

"_I'll kill him! I'll really kill him!"_

* * *

Quite unconcerned about the vow to end his life, Kakashi headed back through the house wearing the fresh clothes he'd been provided with. Bathing hadn't exactly been his priority, but he recognised the need for it. Not only had three days non-stop travel produced a rather offensive odour, he had then carried Sakura back to her room, and if Kakashi had been able to smell her on his clothes afterwards, then so too would the rest of his clan.

Washed and shaved, he felt a little more relaxed. There was now nothing to link him to Sakura… save for what that servant girl had seen. She was, however, from one of the lowest branches of the clan, and he knew from experience that there wasn't much love lost between the upper house and the lowest houses. She wouldn't be volunteering information to someone like Karasu, particularly if she had no reason to think it would be of interest to him.

His only task now was to find his way back to Karasu. Only… he had to admit he was a little lost. Even though he'd visited this place once or twice in the past, he'd never had to navigate himself through the servants' corridors before. The second time he saw that priceless pre-revolutionary tapestry hanging on the corridor wall, he knew he was completely turned around.

That was when the search and rescue party found him.

"Hey! It's Kakashi! See – I told you he was here!"

He turned around expectantly, just in time to half catch, half cushion the smaller woman who barrelled into him with an enthusiastic cry. She gave him a crushing hug around his chest as if she hadn't already greeted him a few hours ago. "Hello, Reika."

"This is a pleasant surprise!" An older fair-haired woman approached, brushing Reika aside to envelope him in a more dignified embrace. "How has my favourite nephew been then? Keeping busy."

"Yes."

"Still hiding that handsome face behind that horrible mask?" she reached up to peel it down to his chin, just so she could pinch his cheeks. "You're too pale. It's not anaemia again, is it…? Did you stop taking your iron tablets?"

"Just a few sleepless nights."

"You look like you could do with a proper meal," she said. "We were just on our way down for lunch."

"But we're late," pointed out a third silver-haired kunoichi, a sister-in-law of his aunt's.

"Yes, well, if we turn up with Kakashi we can just blame it on him."

"Hey…"

"You can sit next to me!" Reika said happily, looping her arm through his. "That way I can hear aaaaaall your news."

"We don't see you enough, Kakashi," his aunt told him.

"We _hear_ about you enough!" the sister-in-law said. "The Copy Ninja this, Sharingan Kakashi that. You seem to get around."

"As do you guys."

"True. How did you even know we were here?" Reika asked.

"A little kitty cat told me," he said, touching her nose, which she seemed to think of as nothing but an adorable variation on 'a little bird'.

"Come on, before the food gets cold!"

At least they knew where they were going. The three women guided him through the corridors, chatting and fussing over his appearance and telling him he needed to have a sleep – but clearly not before they got food into him. By the time they reached the breakfast room, the meal was already underway. Around the table sat a mixture of his clan, mostly off the upper house, although a few of the more exemplary lower house members were also present, and as he found his seat he was treated to several respectful nods and the odd welcoming smile.

However, it wasn't just his family present. The entirety of the Zuru family sat at one end of the room, and though they were a stony, anti-social group at the best of times, this morning there was something heavy and malevolent hanging in the air over that end of the table.

Kakashi sat down on a proffered seat next to Karasu.

"Why are you late?" his clan leader asked him evenly.

"Because I'm not early," Kakashi replied phlegmatically.

"That's funny," Karasu said, although it was hard to say if he was really amused, being sarcastic, or annoyed.

Kakashi looked around the room and noticed that for every gaze that met his own with a smile, another pair of eyes shifted away from him. There was something heavy hanging over this table. A plate of food arrived in front of him, but Kakashi picked at it impolitely, wondering at the dreary silence that encompassed the table on both ends.

"To have come all this way on such short notice..." Karasu began, speaking into the quietness, "Should I be expecting bad news or good news?"

"You know me. If it was bad news I would have already changed my name and made for the mountains so that you'd never find me," Kakashi replied drolly. "There's some news that I'm sure will tickle you. I might save it for a rainy day, since it's bound to cheer you up."

Karasu grunted, looking around the quiet table. "It's the rain country; it rains everyday. And I could do with cheering up right now," he said. "Hatake Matsuke died yesterday."

"What of?"

"Murder."

"That's... unexpected."

"It does tend to creep up on one, doesn't it?"

"Any idea who the culprit is?" Kakashi asked, even though he could take a good guess after what Pakkun had already told him.

Karasu flicked his gaze around the room as if looking for someone, and Kakashi noticed he was counting the servants. "I have vague ideas, but nothing solid. I was concerned we may have been ratted out, but I'm now led to believe it was a bungled assassination job aimed at one of the maids. Matsuke apparently got in the way, as usual."

"Why would anyone kill a maid?" Kakashi asked, and was there any chance this maid had pink hair and answered to the name of Sakura?

Karasu pointed up the table. "What do you see?"

Kakashi looked. Aside from a family of Zurus who appeared to have been given a complimentary lemon each to suck on with their meal, he had no idea what he was supposed to be looking at. "What?"

"The heir," the clan leader said quietly, "has a habit of forcing himself on the pretty maids, and one of my wolves noticed another little Zuru is supposedly on the way and that's upset _a lot_ of people, as you can imagine. I really can't stand men like that; the ones who cause so much mess and needless complication because they can't keep their pricks under control. I don't care much about their household politics, but when one of my men winds up dead because of it, I feel slightly irked. You know?"

It wouldn't keep him up at night though, Kakashi noted, as he glanced towards Toshio. He was being served sake with the trembling hand of the brown haired maid Kakashi had caught him assaulting earlier that very day in the library. If he were to make an educated guess, he would say this was the maid in question. He frowned slightly. He wasn't sure he totally grasped the full details of this situation, and though he was vaguely concerned for the safety of that mousy girl, he felt more concerned that Sakura was involved somewhere. If that girl was Sakura's friend, he didn't doubt for a second that she'd kill to protect her… but you didn't take such insane risks under the nose of a clan like this.

Kakashi also couldn't help but notice Karasu was hedging his words with qualifiers like 'apparently', or 'supposedly'. "Do you not believe that's why Matsuke died?" he asked carefully.

"As I said, I have other ideas… and I smell Konoha's hand in this." Karasu looked at him sideways. "I want to ask your thoughts on something – or rather, someone. I suppose it will have to wait though."

"I see." Kakashi didn't like the sound of that.

"Not only this, but our sub-boss in the cloud village has been killed and replaced with a man who is extremely pro-secession. If he resists further control, I may have to have him assassinated. This is all very depressing, so by all means, tell me your amusing news."

Kakashi smiled faintly. "I'm going to be made Hokage."

The spoon in Karasu's mouth paused and a new kind of surprised silence replaced the oppressive dull one of before. "You're right," he said at last. "That is funny."

Although once again it was hard to tell if he really was amused.

"That's it then," said Reika on Kakashi's other side, her eyes wide with surprise. "If we have control of Konoha, we've won the war. It's over."

"It's not control of Konoha we want, Reika," Karasu retorted to her. "I want that damn village razed to the ground."

"Preserving Konoha would be more to our benefit, don't you think?" Kakashi asked lightly.

"What will _benefit _us is the end of the five villages domination, and nothing will accomplish that but taking Konoha apart brick by brick."

Kakashi shrugged. "To each their own," he sighed. "Obviously that's something that will take careful manoeuvring," Kakashi said swiftly, "even as Hokage. I could easily be removed if they don't think I'm acting in Konoha's best interests. There's still the counsel to consider."

But Karasu didn't care. "I'm not worried. If you've gotten this far, I don't underestimate your powers of subtlety. There is some sort of poetic quality in usurping the throne in a war. I like that."

"I knew you would," Kakashi murmured, but his gaze was on the brown-haired maid stepping out of the room. "If you'll excuse me though, I need to visit the little boy's room."

It was rude, he knew, to arrive late to a meal and then walk out early, but the clan was used to him by now. He passed through the antechamber and into the corridor, and up ahead he caught sight of the brown-haired maid disappearing around a corner. He jogged to catch up, and when he put his hand on her shoulder, she gave such a jump that he immediately felt sorry for her.

"Oh – Hatake-sama!" the girl gasped, clutching a hand to her throat. "You startled me. Is there something you need, sir?"

"No, no, nothing for me," he said, scrutinising her face. She didn't _look_ pregnant, but in these early months he couldn't tell a pregnant girl apart from his elbow. "But I couldn't help but notice you seemed to be in a bit of trouble in the library this morning."

The maid flushed and ducked her head. "That was nothing, sir. Please don't trouble yourself – a-although I'm grateful to you for what you did-"

"That isn't what I want to speak to you about," he said shortly. "I wanted to tell you that it's in your best interests to get out of here."

She stared at him with a slightly worried expression. He knew she was wondering whether to take that as some kind of threat, or just a sign that she was confronting an extremely odd man. Either way, she didn't understand. Well, maids weren't picked for their brains as much as their looks, he guessed. "Pardon?" she chirped quietly.

"I know it's tempting to try and lie low, but even if they let you live to see the baby born, there's a fifty fifty chance they'll have it killed anyway. So it's best if you leave now. Don't worry. I can cover for you-"

"Sir, I think you've mistaken me for someone else," the girl said quickly, swiftly backing away from him.

Had he assumed wrong? "You're not the maid whose pregnant by Toshio?" he asked.

"No." She shook her head at him emphatically.

"Oh."

"That would be Sakura, sir."

* * *

It was no good. No soap in all the Rain country could remove that mark from her posterior. Sakura threw down her wash-cloth on the tiles with an angry slap and sat steaming gently beneath the downpour of the shower head. She knew what it was, as she'd seen Kakashi use it on people before, and the only way she'd ever seen it removed was when either Kakashi dispelled it himself, or the carrier died.

Rubbing her sore bottom, Sakura marvelled at his cheek and glowered over the implications. He would know exactly where she was at all times as long as this name was forced on her. She wouldn't be able to leave this house without him knowing... but it only worked within a three mile radius – give or take a few yards.

She would have to bide her time, though it wasn't impossible. Eventually he would have to leave this place – he only had to go out of range for a day and she would be off. In the mean time she would have to stay strong. It was easy to sit and let the grief and betrayal swallow her whole, helped in no way thanks to her wayward hormones, but right now she could not afford to let Kakashi get to her. Yes, her heart hurt like hell and if she wasn't sitting under the shower, her face would still be wet, but she couldn't let it cripple her. If Kakashi was an enemy of Konoha, she had to stay vigilant and alert.

Had he been anyone else, she would might have killed him by now. Just as she had sliced the head off the man who'd attempted to strangle her in the forest, she would kill a spy who threatened her cover and compromised her village. But the same way Kakashi refused to hurt her, she could not bring herself to hurt him either. Well, he probably deserved a good punch, or at least a few vicious pinches, but eight years supposing they were friends and teammates made one reluctant to turn on the other, no matter how false the foundations of their relationship turned out to be.

Sakura would be compelled to report him to the Hokage, and what they did with him then would be out of her hands. In the mean time, however, lay the complication of how to best one another while at the same time protecting each other. It was a strange and disturbing situation to be in, and had Sakura not been pregnant she would perhaps have been more willing to push the boundaries and see if his concern for her life would lead him to compromise his goals. She might, under ordinary circumstance,, threaten to turn herself over to Karasu. Would Kakashi intervene? Could she make him call her bluff and force him to choose between letting her go and letting her die?

But with two lives to look out for now, Sakura could not play chicken with traitors and mercenaries. She could only continue as she had, attempting to draw as little attention to herself as possible... which was somewhat difficult, she realised, when everyone around her thought she was pregnant with the next heir of the Zuru estate.

As she walked through the servant corridors, it was unnerving how many eyes followed her. It wasn't condemnation or disgust in those gazes, but something more like humbled sympathy. Toshio's reputation as a fiend was one that repulsed a lot of people, and they didn't see her as a whore or a slut. She was a victim, and nothing more.

Nevertheless it exasperated her. She wanted to stomp her foot and shout out that Toshio had barely even touched her, and that this baby was conceived under much happier circumstances... which wasn't saying much. Either way, the father was still an ass.

To get away from the pity, Sakura left the main house and found the path leading around the lake. At the end of it was the doctor's cottage where Himiko was being kept under observation, and Sakura knew she'd already left this visit too long as it was. If she couldn't escape the estate, she would at least do some good.

The doctor was a tall, thin man in his middle years with thick rimmed glasses and a bored expression. For a moment Sakura didn't know what to say.

Then, "Himiko," she began jarringly, "can I see her?"

He looked reluctant. "She's not exactly in any condition to receive visitors."

"I won't be a pest," Sakura pleaded. "I just want to see how she is."

"There's little point. She's not even conscious," he explained.

"_Please_. Let me see her."

He seemed to realise that she wasn't going anywhere until she got her own way, and with a defeated sigh he stepped aside and allowed her into his humble living room. He gestured absently for her to follow him and led her through the house till they came to one of the back bedrooms.

"Don't be alarmed by her appearance," he warned before opening the door. "She's very sick, and you should know that she possibly won't make it through the night."

"I understand," Sakura said, but she felt confident now. If she could just get to Himiko, she knew she could save her life.

But contrary to what the doctor thought, Sakura was not alarmed by her appearance. The woman was sallow and grey and her cheeks sunken, while her only sign of life was the shallow, wheezy breaths she took. Sakura had seen death many times in her life, and she recognised it now. The doctor had been putting it lightly. There was no possibility about it; Himiko was dying.

Sakura dropped into a chair by the bedside and slipped her hand over the woman's colder, clammier one. She looked up at the doctor. "Could we be alone for a moment, please?" she asked.

He hesitated, probably well aware that there was a murderer on the loose and they might have come right back to finish a botched job. Yet he knew that there was no hope for the retainer either way. So in the end he wound up shrugging and exiting the room respectfully, allowing her to say her goodbyes.

Once the door was closed, there wasn't a moment to lose. Sakura stood up and leant over Himiko's form, pressing her fingers to her vital points to feel the strength of her pulse. Weak, but it hadn't given up yet. Judging from the dish of powder on the bedside table, the doctor had already administered the general antidote to most poisons. He'd done his best, and without her equipment, Sakura couldn't do much better. But she could at least attempt to physically extract some of the poison from her body.

As Sakura set to work locating a scalpel in one of the cupboards, she felt her mind shifting back into work mode – the blessed mode that allowed her to focus totally on her problem at hand, leaving no room for thought Kakashi or babies or Toshio or spies. She was just a medic with a patient, and so she set to work making a small, shallow incision on the inside of Himiko's arm. Now all she had to do was summon her medical chakra and bring the poison in her blood out through that opening.

But as she placed her hand over Himiko's arm, she knew something was wrong. Her chakra felt weak and lethargic. It required incredible concentration and control and absolute precision in order to do something like this, but Sakura felt the energy draining clean out of her as she began to draw particles of foreign chemicals from the vein.

Sakura had to stop and sit down to catch her breath. She didn't feel well. She felt _sick._ Why was this happening now of all times, right when she needed her abilities more than ever? Sakura pressed her palm to Himiko's arm again and restarted the procedure.

Barely more than a trickle of poison escaped before Sakura's chakra dissipated once more. But now it wasn't coming back. She sat and took deep breaths to try and rally her strength. She tried again.

Summoning any chakra at all was _impossible_.

_Why?_ she thought. _Why now?_

Kakashi. Of course. When he'd stamped his name on her ass, he'd done something to her chakra in a hope to prevent her escaping. What kind of jutsu he'd used, she didn't know, but he must have done _something_ to her.

She looked at Himiko, feeling quite lost and useless all of a sudden. "I'm sorry," she whispered, flexing fingers ineffectually. "I don't know what else to do…"

The woman didn't look much better, and she certainly hadn't bled out most of the poison she'd felt there. Would that be enough?

Time always passed rather swiftly when Sakura healed, and Sakura slumped in exhaustion by Himiko's bedside until she felt the doctor's hand on her shoulder. She hadn't heard him come in, and glancing at her watch let her know that she'd been there for over an hour.

"You look like you should go home and rest," he said, looking over her curiously. "A woman in your condition should be avoiding stress."

Sakura gave a slightly high, unstable laugh. "Avoid stress? Yes. Ok. I'll do that. Thank you, doctor."

What did this man know about stress? And did _everyone_ know she was pregnant now? Granted, he was a doctor, but Sakura didn't think she liked this vulnerable position where everyone seemed to think Toshio had done this to her. Particularly now that it was evident that she had lost use of her chakra and therefore her best means of defending herself.

Perhaps her only fortune was that she was too fatigued to feel much of anything right now. Tomorrow she might wake up and have a panic attack over her situation, but all she felt at that moment was a bone-deep weariness that drove her back in the direction of the main house.

As she crossed into the court yard, a faraway rumble of thunder seemed to shake the air. It was going to rain. Sakura looked up over the roof of the mansion to see dark clouds rolling closer… but her gaze caught on the black figure leaning motionlessly on the upper floor balcony. Sakura stopped dead.

She didn't have to wonder how he knew where she was. With the seal prickling away on her ass, he'd no doubt been aware of every second of her visit to the doctor's cottage. But the way he watched her was unnerving.

Right then, Sakura didn't think there was a person alive she hated more than Kakashi. He'd betrayed the village. He'd betrayed _her._ He had her trapped here like an animal he was too fond of to put down. And if it wasn't enough that he'd caged her, he'd literally branded her and emasculated her, both physically and emotionally.

Oh, and he'd gotten her pregnant. However, Sakura was beginning to wonder if that even mattered. He was her oppressor, not her lover. He was not fit to be a father to anyone, let alone any child of hers. He didn't deserve it, and no innocent child deserved _him_. Perhaps Hatake Kakashi, her mentor and team leader and Konoha's most elite and trusted jonin might have deserved a say in fatherhood, but not this man. She didn't even know who he was.

A fat raindrop splashed on her nose, reminding Sakura she'd been standing for too long. She crossed the cobbles, heading for the servant's entrance… and felt Kakashi's penetrating glare every step of the way

He could watch her all he liked, but the moment he let his guard down, Sakura knew she would be out from underneath him faster than a spring hare. After that, if she never saw him again it would be in both their best interests.

* * *

After she disappeared from his sight through a narrow side-entrance the heavens opened up in earnest. Kakashi dragged the hood of his cloak over his head but remained stiffly leaning against the balcony rail, and this was because he knew that if he started walking now – if he even _moved _at all – he would not stop until he was standing behind Toshio Zuru with a knife in his hand. Only once had the copy ninja ever murdered anyone out of a personal indulgence, and it wasn't something he cared to repeat often; not because he was anywhere close to resembling a good person with strong morals, but because rarely did he ever feel the urge to kill anyone outside mission objectives. But he felt it now, and perhaps the only thing saving that little worm from being literally gutted was the fact that it would be more trouble than it was worth. Sakura was already in a dangerous position. This whole situation required very delicate treading, and murdering the heir of the Zuru family was not a suitable reaction to learning what he'd done to Kakashi's favourite student.

Even if it was so very, _very_ tempting.

Then of course the other temptation was to go up to Sakura and start choking the life out of that little dolly neck of hers. He physically vibrated with the need to corner her and demand to know what the hell had happened – why the hell a kunoichi of her calibre had submitted to someone _that_ far beneath her? It wasn't a good feeling. If Sakura's understandably strong anger towards him after discovering the connection between himself and the Syndicate was enough to leave a lasting bad taste in his mouth, this was poison.

He'd kill Toshio eventually; it was just a matter of biding his time and waiting for the right moment. But Sakura? What was going to happen to her now?

Until last July, she'd been a virgin – that he knew for certain because _he'd _been the one to take it. It wasn't something he looked back on in pride and he sincerely doubted Sakura remembered it too fondly either, but at least that had to be better than whatever Toshio was capable of. Kakashi knew that man's reputation. It made him physically ill to think of Sakura being the latest in a long line of victims.

And Sakura, being Sakura, never suffered in halves. It wasn't enough that she had been violated by the rain country's biggest pervert. She had to conceive his child too._ The idiot. _On the night Kakashi was with her, she had said she was protected. Since when had that changed?

But was that even true? Was his twenty year old subordinate really pregnant, or was this some cover story she'd spun for something else? As much as he wished it was the latter, he couldn't understand the reasoning. She wouldn't lie about being pregnant with Toshio's child – not if she wanted to disappear like the last maid who'd claimed the same thing. Why would she lie about being pregnant at all? What would she possibly have to gain?

Then there was her body; it had changed noticeably since the last time he'd seen her, and that was something near impossible to fake. He reasoned to himself that her weight gain could have been caused by any number of things. What if she'd abandoned her nonsense diets after discovering some rain country delicacy? What if she wasn't getting enough exercise? Was it a hormonal fluctuation? A thyroid problem? What if she really was sick?

No. When he'd looked into her face he'd seen nothing but an abundance of health and beauty – so different to the way she'd looked in Konoha.

Sakura wasn't sick; she was pregnant. He hated it, and it made him almost dizzy to think about it. But it was not pity for her that made his insides clench so sickeningly… it was almost pity for himself. Ever since that disastrous mission to Jonan in July, he'd been waiting and hoping for the opportunity to make amends with her. He'd watched her spiral of depression and seen her pick at her food while turning away missions. He'd watched her fade, feeling the whole time that it was his fault. He'd paid a heavy price for interfering between her and Sasuke, and then rushed her selfishly into spreading her legs for him, and he'd known forgiveness wouldn't come easily, and he'd be lucky to get it at all. He'd forbidden himself from bothering her, even though her lack of regard for her own health some days had pained him.

Now here she was, almost literally _glowing_ like every damn cliché about pregnant women ever told – and all because of one sick little man who didn't deserve to breathe the same air as her?

How could Toshio have returned a light to her eyes that Kakashi himself had killed? Where was the justice in that?

It was selfish to think it, and though it didn't diminish the sympathy he felt for Sakura, he couldn't help but regret that whatever hope he'd had of making amends was now well and truly dead. She wouldn't forgive him for his family… and why would she want to even consider returning to what they'd had? Not now that she was suffering the ultimate price for a man's abuse.

He wouldn't be surprised if this marked her turn to lesbianism.

But the truth was, any pregnancy now – true or false - complicated matters enormously. Her life was now in far more danger than he'd initially appreciated. If there had already been attempts on her life as a result of this pregnancy, it was no longer a matter of just keeping Sakura here, but also of keeping her safe. If he had to move her out of here, he would; even if it meant putting her in a position where she would be able to contact Konoha.

It was like standing in the middle of a room strung full of razor sharp wires with a blindfold over his eyes. One wrong move in any direction could cut him up if he wasn't careful, and if he stumbled he was dead. For now he could do nothing but keep still and wait… and listen to the faint ebbing pulse of the mark he'd left on Sakura's body. As long as he could still feel it, she was safe. The only problem was, he wouldn't know if anything bad was happening to her until the signal stopped, and that would be when it was too late. She'd need even closer surveillance than just a chakra mark on her posterior.

He'd have to rely on the dogs…

Kakashi remained on the balcony until the rain clouds finally drifted away over the forest. It was already beginning to grow dark when one of the older male retainers approached him. "The room you requested has been prepared, Hatake-sama," he said. "Sorry for the delay. If you'd like to come this way, I'll show-""

"I know the way, thank you," Kakashi said more stiffly than he intended, coming off as typically ungrateful. The retainer didn't look surprised or annoyed. He was used to dealing with this family.

Kakashi took off down the corridors in a determined beeline. He resisted the temptation to deviate down the paths that would lead to the servants quarters where he knew Sakura was. He even resisted splitting away to the wing where the Zuru family, including Toshio, had their private rooms. He managed to keep on walking until he found his chosen guestroom, and once inside he closed the door and pulled the catch so that if he gave into the desire to murder, he would at least be delayed a few seconds.

He turned to his bed with an unguarded sigh of dejection, glad at least for some small comforts after hard days of travel and worry…

And he tensed up immediately when he noticed it was already occupied.

"You're still _so_ anti-social, Kakashi." The platinum haired woman sat up and stretched her arms unsubtly over her head so that the covers fell away, exposing the naked upper half of her body. "You could always take the room next to mine, and then I wouldn't have to sneak so far at least."

"I want to keep you on your toes, Reika," he said heavily, crossing the room until he could sit on the edge of the bed.

Reika crawled up behind him until her naked front was pressed against his rain-soaked back. "That's not a very enthusiastic greeting," she remarked, sounding more put-out than her actions indicated. Clever fingers dragged his mask down, allowing her lips access to his ear and jaw. "It's been over six months. You could at least _pretend_ to be pleased to see me."

"I'm tired," was all he could manage.

"And I know a perfect way to send you off into a beautiful sleep," she purred in his ear, her hands now sliding down his chest, unfastening everything they came across. "Wouldn't you like that?"

He seizing her hand as it began to unbutton his fly. "I'm not in the mood."

"Well, you have to give it a second," she chided, shaking off his grip in order to plunge her hand between the gap in his clothes to grasp his length through his underwear.

For a moment she remained sensual, pressing her breasts against his back while her tongue laved a teasing line along his neck and her hand rubbed in slow, confident strokes over his penis. Kakashi watched his lumpy crotch in consternation, wondering why this reminded him of the time he'd stuck a grass ferret down his pants on a bet when he was nineteen. It was gradually becoming evident to both of them that nothing interesting was happening.

Reika's tongue clicked in annoyance. "What's up with you?" she grunted, tugging fairly hard at him now.

"Nothing, obviously." He dragged her hand aside with a wince, knowing she'd only get rougher if he didn't react. "I told you; I'm tired."

"How about a little sake? Some wine?" she suggested as she wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek over his hair. "I know a little alcohol can get you going _very_ nicely sometimes…"

"I just want to sleep," he said, forcing a yawn. He lay down on his side, but Reika went with him, hooked as she was about him like a koala.

"Six months and all you want to do is literally _sleep_ with me?" she muttered in his ear.

_Preferably without you actually_. But he kept that thought to himself. Honestly, he liked the feel of a female body next to his as much as any man, but this one was blighted with fingers that wandered in sensitive places if she wasn't adequately satisfied. Normally he might just roll over and stick his hand between her legs to solve that problem, but tonight it didn't seem appropriate when there were so many things on his mind.

All he wanted to do was pull the covers over his head and wait for his big genius brain to throw up the answer to the situation. After a night's sleep he might be able to start a new day with clearer thoughts, and hopefully the impulsive urge to kill would have diminished.

"Maybe if I call you Kakashi-sama. You like when I do that, don't you?"

"Reika…"

"Maybe it's impotence. You _are_ getting on a bit-"

"_Reika._"

"I hope you haven't been messing around with other women," she warned strongly, sitting up to glare at him. "You do remember that we're promised to each other."

"In theory. In reality that promise is irrelevant since I'm stationed in Konoha and you're barely in one place longer than a week," he pointed out.

"Yes," she grumbled, leaning down to nose his ear again. "But things are changing now, aren't they? How long will it be once you become Hokage that Konoha will fall and you'll be free to join us again. A month? Two months? I've no doubt that you'll be back amongst us by the end of the year."

"And then my life as I know it will be over," he said. "All the friends I have there will be gone. Fancy that."

Reika seemed to hesitate for a moment. Everyone had their doubts about Kakashi's detachment from Konoha, and hearing him say something like that must have alarmed her. "But they're not your true friends. If they knew who you were, they'd lock you up. They'd kill you."

"I know," he said thickly. "But I'm not going to pretend I'm totally welcome here either."

"Anyone who feels that way are idiots. All of them," Reika declared. "_I _know you. I know you better than anyone else alive Kakashi, and I know you're more committed to this clan than half these shiny-eyed wannabies. _I _know how Karasu has cheated you, and once we're together, we can start to put things right again."

Kakashi almost smiled. This girl had tremendous ambition, and he knew the only reason she sympathised with him was because she recognised how it would benefit herself if they were allied, married, and had children. As a woman, the title of clan heir skipped straight over her, but she could wrest it back into her family line if she picked her partners carefully enough. A more straightforward woman might aim for Karasu. A cynical one went for the outsider.

Unfortunately for her, Kakashi had already planned never to marry.

"I really would just like to sleep," he said, not having to fake his weariness in the slightest. "I've been travelling all day, so…"

He left his point hang, knowing she would catch his meaning. With a sigh, she rolled out of the bed and began jamming her clothes back on. "_And_ you gave me the cold shoulder in Jonan. Don't you think that maid outfit made me look hot?"

"What did you honestly expect me to do?" he pointed out. "I was with someone from Konoha."

"Were you?" she looked vaguely at him, trying to remember. "A boy, wasn't it?"

He shrugged as if he didn't recall. This really wasn't a line of conversation he wished to encourage, since on top of all the troubles flocking around him, he didn't Reika remembering _that _'boy', and then noticing that same person was just as good at playing maid around here as Reika was in Jonan.

Reika shrugged into her jacket and snapped up the buttons. As she rearranged her hair, she glared at him through narrowed eyes. "Don't get soft on your Konoha friends," she told him icily. "They'll only betray you, like they did your father, and if they got him killed, they'll get you too."

"Bye bye, Reika," he said loudly, and watched her slink out of the room like a banished dog.

When the door slid shut, he as good as forgot about her, but even though he really _was _tired he lay awake, staring at the wall. Just thinking about Sakura gave him a hard, unpleasant feeling in his stomach. It was the same way he felt when looking at any problem he didn't know how to solve.

He felt like he'd lost her twice over. The moment she had learnt of his ties to the Syndicate, he knew that any chance of reconciliation with her was gone. But for her to be pregnant? This left her further away from him than he'd realised, even though he could feel the soft pulse of the chakra mark on her body somewhere nearby. She was stationary.

Was she in bed? Was she asleep? Or was she lying awake like him and feeling as wretched at the thought of him as the thought of her made him feel?

* * *

Next Chapter: _When the Earth and the Sun Collide (Or, How Hatake Kakashi Finally Found a Girl In Need of Lobotomising)_


	18. When the Earth and the Sun Collide

**House of Crows**

Chapter Seventeen: When the Earth and the Sun Collide

* * *

_Almost brave, almost pregnant_

_Almost in love_

* * *

Vomit splattered the toilet bowl.

Sakura hung there for several more minutes until she was certain the nausea was passing. With a tired groan she reached for the toilet paper to wipe her mouth as she flushed the handle. It had been a while since she'd been struck down by morning sickness, but she was getting used to it by now, even if it meant she had to spend five minutes brushing her teeth to remove the taste of bile.

The relapse probably had something to do with Kakashi. She'd left Konoha to escape stress, and he'd only gone and followed her, hadn't he? And if there was one thing a pregnant girl didn't need, it was the deadbeat-dad-slash-traitor hanging around and driving her anxiety through the roof.

Her only fortune was that he probably didn't know she was pregnant yet. Sakura was quite sure by now that she _didn't _want him to know, at least not until she was emotionally better prepared to deal with him. Right now, especially at this very moment as swayed before the bathroom mirror feeling weak and poorly, she didn't feel ready to face up to Kakashi and this pregnancy and the fact that it would only be matter of time before he found out.

At least the mark on her bottom didn't hurt as much today. Sakura hoped it was fading, but she only had to hoist up her nightshirt and peer into the mirror to see that Kakashi's name was still printed vividly on her flesh. The colour seemed to be darkening though, turning from red to a deep maroon, and in a day or two it would probably be black. Sakura had never thought to ask about this particular jutsu before. She'd never seen Kakashi use it on someone long enough for it to change colour, so she could only pray this didn't mean it was permanently 'setting', so to speak. If that was the case, heads would roll again; and this time it would be Kakashi's.

Dragging her fingers through her hair to push it into a more presentable mess, Sakura left the bathroom to head back to the dorm. Kaoru and Aki had gone on ahead to start the day's work, leaving only Yui behind. When Sakura entered she was folding up her futon as per routine, but then she looked up to give Sakura such a look that the temperature seemed to plummet several degrees.

Sakura smiled nervously and moved away to get dressed.

It didn't take a genius to know why Yui's hatred of Sakura had been re-energized and concentrated. Everyone knew that Yui was Toshio's favourite, and anyone who got between them earned Yui's unadulterated wrath. For Sakura to be pregnant was an unbearable affront.

Frankly Sakura was surprised that Yui hadn't stabbed her to death in her sleep yet.

As Sakura tied the strings of her apron behind her back, Yui surprised her by speaking.

"Himiko is being sent home today."

Sakura spun awkwardly to face her. "She's better?" she gasped, hardly daring to hope. Perhaps she _had _removed enough of the poison last night?

Yui glared at her, clearly placing all the blame of what had happened to Himiko onto Sakura. It had, after all, been Sakura's drink that had poisoned the head of staff. "A _little _better," Yui said stonily. "The doctor is sending her back to her family to recuperate. It may be a long time before she returns, so until then, I'm in charge. I'm taking over as Lady Zuru's personal retainer."

That was a thought to choke on. Sakura tried to keep her face neutral as she politely pointed out, "Shouldn't Aki be the Lady's retainer? She's been here the longest and has the most experience…"

"I am the oldest," was all Yui said.

There was no point arguing with her. Sakura doubted even Aki would have bothered sticking up for herself to this girl, even if the position of personal retainer was one that these girls coveted more than anything. That was probably why Yui hadn't strangled Sakura yet; she was momentarily mollified by the fact that Himiko's untimely demise had landed her with a dream promotion, something more important than her lover knocking up her colleagues. At least for now.

Eager to get out of there, Sakura made a show of looking at her watch, even though she didn't register the time. "I better go and bring the twins' their breakfast then," she said. This was her morning duty on Wednesdays and Fridays, and it was always wise to move quickly in case the twins decided to get up early and go down to the kitchens to pester the staff for sweets.

"No," Yui interrupted her before she could escape out the door. "The rain got in last night on the fourth floor landing. Someone needs to mop it up."

"Would that someone be me?" Sakura asked with excessive sweetness.

Yui was roughly three more words away from slapping her. "You know where the mops are," she said

As Sakura stumped up to the fourth floor with her bucket and mop, she wondered if her social standing amongst the staff was now in jeopardy. She'd been relying on Himiko keeping her under a protective wing, but with Yui overseeing things, Sakura was now out on a limb by herself and Yui was going to shake that branch as much as possible.

Sakura suspected toilet cleaning duties would be on the increase now.

Up the last flight of stairs, she passed one male servant she sometimes saw around the halls. Quite often he smiled at her and said 'good morning', as if thunderclouds and drizzling rain were his idea of a pleasant start to the day, but this time he all too politely averted his gaze to the wall. Sakura sighed. She had to expect these kinds of things if she was going to remain here, and remain here she would until she discovered a safe way to shake all the people who had a vested interest in seeing her either shut up or dead.

_Why_ _me?_ she thought morosely as she began hunting around for the mess she was supposed to clean up. It was hard to miss – it was the enormous puddle of water next to one of the open terrace windows. Sakura wrinkled her nose as she looked down at the mess. She had no idea where the mud or the black and green bits of old moss had come from, but this was the rain country, and when you left a window open during the night in this place you were inviting in not only the rain but half the rainforest too.

She heaved a heavy sigh – something she seemed to be doing a lot lately – and slapped her mop down on the floorboards to begin cleaning up.

And this was how she discovered the other annoying thing about being a servant. Not only was she completely invisible to the people she waited on, but what she was doing was also equally invisible. Sakura had to stop several times and step aside to let another Hatake idiot tromp past, some of them so oblivious that they simply walked through the puddle and then turned to scold her as if this was somehow her fault.

Sakura just stared stolidly back as her fingers twitched on the handle of her mop, itching to take a swing at one of these pretentious cretins. It was hard to imagine how Kakashi could be related to these people. Where he was soft-spoken, unflappable, and tolerant to a fault at times, his relatives were loud, arrogant, and generally unpleasant.

But he probably deserved them.

The mark on her hip began to prickle. She could hear footsteps on the stairs behind her, and her stomach dropped unpleasantly as she quickly realised who it was. The house was a big place, and it was too much of a coincidence for him to be just passing by, not when he knew where to find her at all times.

She resolutely continued pushing her mop around the floor with a scowl on her face until the tangled grey mass bumped against a pair of shoes like an overturned bowl of worms. Sakura stopped but didn't look up. "You're in my way," she ground out.

He wasn't, but he took a measured step backwards anyway to let Sakura clean the already clean floor.

"Sakura," Kakashi said, "I'd like to talk to you."

"It's not like you have to make an appointment," she snapped. "Go ahead. I'm not _busy _or anything"

"Not here," he said, looking around the deserted corridor. "When do you have a break?"

"I don't," she lied. "I work until I collapse with exhaustion."

He fell quiet, as if struggling to figure out how to talk to her. That made Sakura pause in her moping to fix him with a scrutinising stare. For as long as she'd known him, she'd never known him to be lost for words, and it was often the case that the angrier he got, the more bizarrely eloquent he could get. There was no mistake that he was angry now, so why was he so tongue-tied? And more importantly, why was he avoiding looking at her like the servant on the stairs?

He took a deep breath. "The library. Tonight when you get off, I'll be waiting there."

"Wait all you like, I won't be coming," she said bluntly.

Now he looked her in the eye. "Yes, you will."

He was infuriating, looking at her as if _she_ was the irritating one and giving her orders like she really was his property. His name may have literally been on her ass, but considering all the things he'd put her through, he had no right to be glaring at her like that.

So when he turned to leave, probably feeling like he'd made his point, Sakura's hands moved of their own accord. The mop swung in a fine arc and the sopping, filthy mop head struck the back of Kakashi's with a resounding and extremely satisfying slap.

Kakashi stopped dead, shoulders stiff with revulsion like someone who'd had a bucket of dung thrown over him… or alternatively, someone who had been slapped in the head with the dirtiest mop in creation. Sakura quickly went back to mopping the floor, daring him to retaliate. But after a moment's pause he forced himself to walk on. A wise decision, she felt. They both knew he'd only get the same mop shoved down his throat if he tried to reprimand her.

It was a small rebellion in the face of so much oppression, but it brought a little smile to her face nonetheless. She didn't appreciate being ordered around as if he was still her superior, and there was a good chance she'd leave him hanging tonight out of pure spite, even if talking to him might be in her better interests. Then there was the curiosity. _Why_ did he want to talk to her?

With the way he'd almost been unable to look at her, she had a nasty feeling that perhaps he already…

_In that case, I'm _definitely_ not going,_ she thought.

* * *

"Since when did you start smoking again?" Karasu asked him.

Kakashi gave an evasive shrug. "Can't have too much fresh air. It's bad for you."

They were leaning against the rail of one of the highest terraces overlooking the lake, almost alone but for the ten crows preening themselves further along the rail. One of them was white. Kakashi watched it speculatively as he released a rush of smoke from his nose into the hot, humid air. He thought about its slightly yellowed underbelly, and its inky black eyes, and the feather sticking up on its back that was waiting to be straightened. He thought about this, because it was easier to think about a bird than anything else at that moment.

Probably safer too, when Karasu was around.

"Why couldn't we talk in your room?" Kakashi asked curiously.

"There's a bug in there," Karasu replied, tugging his ear to emphasise it wasn't of the insect variety. "Its been in there since we arrived."

Kakashi dangled the cigarette from his fingers and tapped the loose ash over the side of the rail. "Zuru listening in on us again?" he suggested. It wouldn't be the first time the resident family had tried to witlessly eavesdrop on the Hatake clan, but anyone would think by now that Zuru should have learned not to bother.

"Maybe," Karasu answered. He leant on the rail, looking down at the tranquil garden below.

"You haven't disabled it yet?"

"Why would I want to do that? It's much more fun to feed it things and wait to see who jumps." He laughed softly to himself.

Kakashi looked sharply at Karasu, beginning to realise this wasn't just another underhanded trick played by the Zuru family. If that was the case, Karasu would have destroyed the bug. To feed it things could only mean he suspected someone else of planting it. "You think there's a mole here?" Kakashi guessed.

Karasu squinted one eye at him, the other closed against the strong sunlight. "What do you think?"

What did Kakashi think? _Sakura_ was the first thought that came to mind, but he pushed it back and pretended to both himself and Karasu that the idea baffled him. "I think its more likely Zuru."

"I agree," Karasu said, "but what is more likely sometimes isn't the reality – oh. Here she comes." He straightened, looking down towards the garden with keener interest than before. "Remember I wanted to ask you about someone?"

Kakashi followed his gaze and clamped down on his surprise when he realised Karasu was watching two girls make their way across the garden with cleaning buckets and rags under their arms. One was a brunette in a blue yukata that Kakashi was almost certain was the same girl he'd confronted the previous day. The one who had told him about Sakura' pregnant.

The other girl with her was said pink haired girl in a bold red yukata.

He didn't react. Kakashi's poker face wasn't the scourge of Konoha's game circuit for no reason, and though he noticed Karasu looking at him very closely, he remained impassive. He glanced over at the other staring man with an eyebrow quirked in bemusement. "Huh?" was all he said.

"Do you know that girl?" Karasu asked him with a faint smile, jerking his head towards the girls. They were making their way beneath arches of wisteria, heading towards the onsen.

"Yeah, I know her," Kakashi replied. "The brown-haired one, right? She's the one Toshio knocked up."

Karasu's scowl clouded over his face. "What? You idiot, what the hell makes you think that?"

"She's the one I saw him beating in the library. After you told me, I figured-"

"Like Toshio limits himself to just one girl. The pink one." Karasu pointed. "Are you telling me you've never seen her before?"

Kakashi leaned on the rail and took another drag of the cigarette, pretending to deliberate. "I think I'd remember hair like that. Why do you want to know anyway?" he asked.

"She's from Konoha."

Looking at Karasu, he noticed the other man's face was blank. His eyes had turned back to the girls disappearing up the steps of the onsen, and for the life of him, Kakashi couldn't tell if he was being baited.

"Are you sure?" Kakashi asked carefully.

Karasu nodded. "She has the same accent as you."

"As does half the fire country," Kakashi protested. "Come on, you must have more reason to suspect her than that."

There was a smile and a shrug. "You had a student named Sakura didn't you?"

Kakashi discreetly bit on his cheek, and covered for it be raising the cigarette to his mouth again. He'd told Karasu about his students in passing many times in the past, mostly to complain about them, but he'd started to leave them out of conversations as it became more and more evident that Karasu's contempt for Konoha was crystallising into something serious – something he was going to take action over. Some gut instinct made him hold his tongue about the three people he'd grown so fond of, as if speaking about them was laying them open to attack.

However, Karasu remembered them well enough. It was a blessing that Kakashi had never actually bothered to describe them to his family beyond their irritating behaviour. "Haruno Sakura," he agreed softly. "Batshit insane, some might say." He shot Karasu an amused look. "Did you think that was her?"

"It crossed my mind," Karasu replied.

"I doubt she's anything like as monstrous as my Sakura," Kakashi pointed out.

"I don't know. A few days ago she witnessed a man have his head severed and she was covered in blood from head to toe. I would have expected a girl like that to miscarry after such a shock. You know what she did?"

Kakashi dreaded to think. "What?"

"She told me off for making a joke about Matsuke's head." Karasu sounded disgruntled. "She has a cheeky face and her eyes are as steady as rocks. It's quite unnerving when she stares at you. It's like being scolded by your mother."

"I see." Kakashi could make no comment to that. He'd been subjected to the whole variety of Sakura's moods over the years, and sometimes he had to admit she could intimidate people better than he could. However, she also had the gift of charm which he lacked, so while she could glare people into submission one moment, she could also tuck her hands behind her back, smile, and tilt her head coquettishly and they'd be putty in her hands the next.

Kakashi was one of those people, so he sympathised with Karasu enormously. But he also had to worry, because unbeknownst to Karasu, the man had managed to figure out _exactly_ who she was.

"Do you really think she's a spy then?" Kakashi asked lightly. "We could always take her in for a little questioning."

"Don't be barbaric, you can't torture a pregnant girl," Karasu admonished him. "She said some things that made me curious, but you've reassured me. You've never seen her around Konoha?"

"I don't think so," Kakashi said, watching Karasu as closely as Karasu watched him. "It might be worth keeping an eye on her. I don't know _everyone_ in that village."

Karasu regarded him a moment longer before turning his gaze back to the garden with a sigh. "No. I'm not all that happy with my pet theory. I don't believe Konoha would leave an expecting mother in the field, nor do I think they would have left us alone this long if they really had a contact here. It's probably nothing. Probably just Zuru being a nosy bastard again. We'll wait and see."

All the more reason for Sakura to shut up and keep her head down. When he saw her tonight, he would have to remind her of the importance of her silence.

Karasu batted him over the head. "Stop looking so serious, mop-head," he said. "Why don't you go play with that puppy of yours? What's his name… Pa-chan, or something?"

"Pakkun," Kakashi corrected with a hint of warning about his tone. He could feel it coming. Because if ever the subject of dogs was brought up in the presence of Karasu, the conversation would naturally turn to-

"You should really think about making a contract with the wolves," Karasu told him. "They're much better. In endurance they beat your short-legged little show dogs hands down. Their senses are more acute, they can track for further, their reflexes are faster, their bite is more powerful-"

"They're not as intelligent."

"How rude."

"I'm just saying." Kakashi never enjoyed these conversations, but between this and discussing Sakura's identity with a man who would kill her if he knew the truth, defending his choice of summon was much more preferable. "I'm happy with my dogs."

Karasu didn't give up. "They were your father's thing after he left the clan. They don't have to be yours too."

"I'm supposed to ditch everything associated with my father?" Kakashi asked, amused.

"That's not what I'm saying," Karasu hedged. "But maybe you should consider the impression it gives. Dogs are just tamed wolves; neutered, pampered, and defanged. Your father was a wolf… until he met your mother and he became a dog for Konoha."

Kakashi gave a vague shrug, drawing from a cigarette that seemed to be shrinking twice as fast as usual. "Konoha's not what it used to be," he told his cousin quietly. "It may have been the first village, but if it hadn't formed… the revolution would have happened anyway. People were tired of whoring themselves to the highest bidder. They wanted a home and a cause other than money to fight for, and it was only a matter of time. What the founders did to our clan is heinous. But do you really think its fair to punish all the people living in Konoha today for a tragedy their elders committed?"

With very little hesitation, Karasu chirped, "Sure."

"You believe in ancestor sin?" Kakashi shot back. "Then you hold me responsible for my father's betrayal?"

Something in Karasu's gaze softened as he looked back at him. "I don't blame you. Your father paid for his mistake when he lost his wife and his sanity. And I don't blame the people in Konoha for what their elders did either, but those power-mad old farts were never made answerable and their children enjoy the spoils ripped out of the hands of clans like us who refused to bow down. I can't accept that. We've only been doing what ninja have been doing for hundreds of years, but suddenly some of them settle and decide the rest of us are criminals infringing on their territory? Join us or die, that was what the first world war was fought over, you know, and we lost. Against the Uchiha and the Senju, we were never going to win. Now we cower and run and they get richer and fatter, still climbing over each other's corpses to stay on top. They call us rogue murderers and put bounties on our heads while they commit genocide against one of their own clans. It makes me sick." He gave Kakashi an impassive look. "It's not personal, but the villages have to go. There will be no such thing as freedom in this world until they lose power. I want the children of this clan to know the freedom our great great grandfathers had."

Kakashi said nothing. His cigarette had burned down to the filter, and all he could so was stare at it.

"You understand, don't you?" Karasu asked him. "This is the only way it can be for us. If you want to return to Konoha and fight for them, I won't stop you, but if we meet in battle I won't spare you either."

So many choices, but so few options. That always seemed to the case with Kakashi. He sighed and leant his elbows against the rail, looking down at the garden and imagining Sakura walking along the path with her friend as she'd done a few minutes ago. Glossy, shining hair that caught the light; a free, unrestrained laugh as her partner said something naughty. He smiled. "I want to be here," he said.

Karasu clapped his shoulder. "When this is all over, I'm promoting you."

Unable to help himself, Kakashi snorted. There were no ranks within the clan that weren't dictated by blood. "To what? Brother?" he teased.

"Heir."

Kakashi stared. "Why?"

"Well…" he sighed, scratching his head. "I figure if you marry Reika… she'll only murder everyone between you and the title of clan leader, including me. This way she won't have to, and I might die of semi-natural causes unrelated to Reika."

"That's very sweet."

"You're welcome," Karasu said, as if he didn't really care. "It's only fair anyway, considering…"

"Thank you, Karasu," he said, more earnestly. "It means a lot."

"If you want some privacy to weep tears of joy," his cousin returned sardonically, "I'll go exercise."

Karasu headed back inside and the crows perched on the rail scattered, flapping away over the trees and the rooftops. Kakashi turned his gaze back to the garden, hoping to catch another glimpse of Sakura and pink hair and an easy laugh that she would never use around him again.

"_Ahem_."

Kakashi looked down at his feet.

Pakkun looked back at him, corkscrew tail wiggling once or twice in greeting. "For the record," he said. "My senses are just as good as any wolf's."

"If that's true, why didn't you tell me?" Kakashi asked him shortly.

Pakkun cocked his head in confusion. "About what?"

"That Sakura was pregnant," he bit out.

Pakkun's head tilted even further. "She is?"

At that point Kakashi's forehead hit the railing between his forearms. "I think I _will _trade you in for a wolf," he said coldly.

"Hey, look," Pakkun rumbled. "I don't know what you're talking about. Wild Orchid smells exactly the same as she did back in Konoha."

That wasn't possible. Kakashi lifted his head to look at the small pug with a faint frown. "She can't have."

"Then I don't know what to tell you," Pakkun sighed. "I'll admit my nose isn't the best in the pack. Get one of the bloodhounds if you think I missed something. Not even wolves can compete with them."

Kakashi wasn't attending anymore. His frown had deepened and he was staring at the empty garden below without seeing or hearing anything. Pakkun called his name a few times curiously, before eventually giving up with a sigh and padding off down the steps to investigate some flowerbeds.

Alone, Kakashi continued to stare unseeingly into the distance.

"She can't have."

* * *

After scrubbing the onsen with Kaoru, Sakura went down to the undercroft to check her duty roster for rest of the day. She was faintly annoyed (but not particularly surprised) that someone had completely rewritten her assignments.

8:30: Clean Cloud wing toilets.

10:00: Make and change beds of occupied guest rooms.

11:30: Lunch – stay behind to help serve 12:00 group

12:20: Wash up duty.

13:30: Clean toilets in servant wing.

14:30: Deliver towels from onsen to laundry staff.

15:15: Break

15:16: Make and change beds of remaining occupied guest rooms

16:00: Clean toilets in Crane wing.

17:00: Dinner – stay behind to serve 17:30 group.

18:00: Break

19:00: Deliver fresh laundry.

19:30: Take shoes for repair.

20:00 – 23:00: On call in upper hall

Sakura looked at the board in dismay, noticing that her schedule today seemed fuller than anyone else's, and it was the same for the rest of the week too. With the inordinate number of times the word 'toilet' had been mentioned, she detected Yui's not-so-sly hand. Of course, as new retainer to Lady Zuru she could order Sakura onto the roof to hold up a metal rod in the middle of a thunderstorm if she felt like it.

She also noticed that she'd been given a random break at six that evening. That was one of the busiest times for staff, and that was when the maids were expected to wait on the family in the dining hall. This annoyed Sakura for two reasons. Firstly, she'd had to poison two very nice girls to get that gig, and secondly, now of all times she wanted to hear what the Hatake clan discussed, especially if Kakashi was amongst them. The only real reason Sakura could think of that might explain why Yui had bumped her off the roster was because Toshio would be there too. Sakura gave a snort of dismissal. As if she wanted to be near that lout - Yui was perfectly welcome to him and his grubby little hands.

Even so, the new schedule would keep her busy at least until around midnight. Did Kakashi know that? He'd probably turn up at ten (if he intended to arrive at nine) and eventually assume she wasn't coming. Which she wasn't. But he certainly wouldn't be able to blame her for the immense workload that had been foisted onto her.

Sakura set about her tasks, cutting corners and sweeping dust under rugs, figuratively and sometimes literally. Being three months pregnant, she felt no need or desire to do a good, fast job. For the most part she just wandered from room to room, dragging a dust cloth over a few tables before moving onto cleaning some toilets – which mainly just consisted of filling the room with perfume to disguise any smell – and possibly blind the eyes of anyone who entered so they couldn't see there was still a mess.

Making beds was easy when she didn't bother with changing the sheets. There was a lot of dog hair – or wolf hair, rather – on the covers in the Hatake guest rooms. They probably slept with their summons. Like Kakashi.

Sakura floated through her duties, far too used to the swing of things by now to be troubled. Into the evening she realised she'd been assigned a lot of solitary tasks, as she folded away some clean dresses in the twin's bedroom. Yui was probably trying to make her feel lonely. It was sort of working. The more time alone she had, the more she began to miss Himiko, and Dokko, and her friends back in Konoha. What was Ino doing, she wondered? How was Tsunade coping with all that work? Had her house been auctioned yet?

Had anyone realised Kakashi was a spy?

By eight o'clock, Sakura could relax. Being on call meant you had to wait in the common room of the undercroft, and if a bell rang, someone had to go running to answer the demands of whoever had rung it. Bells seemed to be going a lot more often now that the house was full of guests, but there were plenty of other servants on call that evening too, most of them gathered around a table next to a heater, playing a card game.

Sakura was too tired to join in. She curled on an ancient, patchy sofa in the corner which smelled rather strongly of damp and mold, and promptly went to sleep. She woke up whenever a bell rang, but someone else always went away to deal with it first, and after the third bell, Sakura woke to find someone had covered her with their housecoat.

A bell went off at five minutes past eleven, but by then it was too late. Sakura was officially off the hook anyway. She rose with a stretch and a yawn, looking forward to her own bed that was marginally more comfortable and better smelling.

Then she remembered Kakashi and the library, and though she desperately tried to talk herself out of it… she knew she was going.

"Dammit…" she muttered to herself as left the common room in the direction of the library rather than her dorm.

The underground passages of the undercroft were quiet. The few servants still working would be upstairs waiting on the family and their guests who tended to stay up late. No one would be using the library at this hour, but Sakura still trod the boards lightly, knowing she would be in serious trouble if she was found creeping around this late in the library without authorisation. Kakashi probably didn't understand that. If he had, he would have asked to meet her in an empty guestroom or something.

Well… considering the last time they'd been in a guestroom together she'd conceived this baby, Sakura decided that might not be wise.

Inside it was dark and perfectly still. Sakura didn't bother calling out his name – she sensed, with an instinct only acquired by those who had spent eight years of their life _waiting _for this man, that he wasn't there. He was probably and very typically late, and she knew that at least until the mark on her hip began to sting she was alone.

Bored, she wandered the stacks of books. Even if there was no real charm about a library full of new, untouched books, she loved the smell. It reminded her of her brand new medical textbooks she'd bought when she was thirteen. They'd been expensive, but her mother had bought them as if it was nothing, and it wasn't until later that Sakura realised the new washing machine her mother had wanted to buy was suddenly forgotten. The money had gone to Sakura's books instead.

Her mother had always been like that. Selfless to a fault at times and always putting her daughter before herself. In a way it made Sakura a little uncomfortable just thinking about it. She knew she was quite selfish sometimes, and had she been her own mother, she would have told her daughter to buy her own bloody books. Some people didn't make good mothers. What if Sakura was one of them? What if she couldn't even be kind to someone who depended on her like that?

Sakura must have wandered for an hour, until eventually she found herself on the upper floor, standing next to one of the stacks of poetry. There sat all of Naka's works; the early stuff and the late stuff; the good and the bad. Sakura picked out her favourite volume and chose a table next to a window to read it under the moonlight. It was warm, so she pushed open the glass panel to let the cooler night air wash over her.

Despite her bizarre and alien circumstances, the familiarity of the words seemed to reassure her. Like old friends, she reacquainted herself with her favourite poems, whispering the words to herself until her eyelids grew heavy and her head started to sag.

When she woke it was raining. Fat raindrops were hitting the windowsill and splashing her hand, and for a moment Sakura thought this and the noise was what had woken her. When she sat up, she found Kakashi sitting opposite her.

Her back stiffened instinctively and she hastily wiped moisture from her chin. "I'm not drooling – it's the rain."

"I see that."

He was sitting half in and half out of the shadow, leaving him almost entirely obscured in darkness save for the arms resting on the table. Sakura had a feeling this was deliberate. Before he'd been a teacher, he'd been in ANBU, and in ANBU, he'd dabbled in interrogation. He must have known all the tricks to put someone on edge, and despite herself, he _was_ a little intimidating. Especially when he said nothing.

"You've got a lot of nerve, you know," she told him frostily. "Whatever you did to me, undo it."

The fingers of one of his hands drummed softly against the table. Just once. "What have I done to you?" he asked quietly.

"Don't pretend you don't know," she hissed, standing up to gesture so he could see the hand she pressed against her hip, and he leant forward slightly to finally emerge from the shadow. "It wasn't funny, so you can take it off right this instant!"

His gaze seemed to wander over her, but he never once took stock of the part of her she was gesturing to. "No," he said simply. "That's the only way to keep a tab on you; I'm not removing it."

"I'm not kidding, sensei," and how she loathed to honour him with such a title. "I can't even use chakra – you can't _do_ this to me."

"The mark has absolutely no potential to interfere with your chakra," he said heavily. "Although I hear that's a common side-effect of pregnancy."

Sakura's knees felt weak. She sat down abruptly and dropped her swimming head into her hands, but otherwise the space in her head was remarkably calm. Almost serene, in fact. It almost felt like another burden had been lifted off her shoulders, because this was what she'd been trying to tell him for almost two months since the day she discovered this pregnancy, even if her feelings were now awfully mixed on the matter.

"How did you find out?" she asked in a hollow voice.

His sleeves rustled as he folded his arms. For the first time she noticed he wasn't wearing his Konoha uniform; he was wearing clothes like the rest of his clan of drab greys and blacks and brown leather straps. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him out of uniform. "It seems like everyone around here knows," he said. "I heard a maid got knocked up by Toshio, but I have to admit, you would have been my last guess. Did you forget to bring your birth control? That's pretty careless, even for you."

There was something unpleasant and condemning about that tone. Sakura shuddered. The insinuation of his disappointment in her lay between them on the table, making it difficult for her to look up at him. At least the hammering of the rain outside took the edge off a silence that otherwise threatened to crush her under its weight. She heard the flutter of wings as something came in to land on the tree beyond the window with a soft squawk, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Kakashi tense and bring a hand instinctively to his shuriken pouch. In this place he was probably every bit as paranoid and alert as she was. A lot could go wrong for both of them if they were found together. But gradually he relaxed and turned away from the window.

Then he finally spoke again. "Why haven't you gotten rid of it yet?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I was under the impression I had a choice in the matter," she remarked scornfully.

The flat of his hand hit the table, hard enough to make her jump slightly but not enough to leave any doubt that he was in control of his temper. "This isn't a joke, Sakura," he whispered harshly. "You deserve better than to resign yourself to _this._ I have no idea what the hell happened to you, but I'm not even going to entertain the idea that he did anything to you against your will. That's not possible. But I know this guy, Sakura, and the things he's done to other girls-"

"I know _exactly_ what he's done," Sakura interrupted. "He's one of _your _kind, after all. And you're right; I was in control of the situation. But don't mistake that for willingness."

"And despite knowing what he is, you'd still have his child?" he asked sharply. "Is that it?"

Sakura sat back slightly and looked away. Her desire to defy him at every turn only went so far. Lying that she'd want a child of Toshio's just to spite Kakashi was not something she could say without being physically ill.

Across from her, Kakashi seemed to take her silence as confirmation of something and sighed. "Tomorrow. I'll take you to Amegakure tomorrow and put an end to this-"

"You're mistaken if you think we have that kind of relationship anymore," Sakura said, almost laughing in her disbelief of his nerve. But while her voice was strong, moisture was gathering along her lashes. "We're not friends! You're not my teacher! I would no sooner go anywhere with you than I'd go anywhere with Orochimaru."

"Don't turn this into something about me and you," he said, always so implacably hard. "This is your life – don't throw it away! You're in no fit state to be a mother and you know that. You can't even keep a roof over your head. So don't you dare throw your last chance in my face just because you want to punish me."

Her heart knotted painfully. He was only saying all the things she'd been telling herself, but to hear Kakashi speak those words was like a blow to the head. She couldn't be a mother. She was too young and too selfish and too unprepared.

And it was all too late.

She opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden trilling outside the window made her stop dead. That bird again. She could see it out on the nearest branch of the tree, bobbing its head and flapping its wings as it looked straight at them. Sakura got a queer feeling from its focused, intelligent gaze.

In a second Kakashi was on his feet and his hand moved faster than the eye could follow. The bird's noise ceased as its head slipped off its neck and tumbled out of sight, gradually followed by the rest of its body. Sakura could only stare in mute shock, unable to quite believe what he'd done. The unnecessary cruelty of this one act struck her as more swift and brutal than anything she'd seen before in this man. It was so unlike the Kakashi she knew that for the first time she felt she was witnessing the truth of his character. And it scared her.

"Why did you do that?" she nearly shrieked. "It was just a bird!"

He said nothing, and only when he was satisfied that nothing else lurked out there did he sit down again. He didn't look quite the same as before. There was something unsettled about his gaze now. "I'll come to take you to Amegakure tomorrow," he repeated. "At least sleep on it."

Sakura shook her head, eyes wide and stinging with tears. "I can't," she whispered.

"Sleep on it," he pressed.

Her head continued shaking. "Would you be asking me to do this if it was your child?"

He glanced at her impatiently. "That's irrelevant."

"No, it isn't," she shot back, her voice constricting higher. "I'm asking you… would you be telling me to do this if it was yours?"

"Sakura…" he said, much more quietly, "it's not mine."

She stared back, locked in his gaze and witnessing something very close to desperation there.

"It's not mine," he said again, louder, as if he was trying to convince her more than himself.

"Why are you so certain?" she demanded. "Do you really think I would let Toshio touch me? With all the genjutsu I have, do you _really _think I even needed to do anything with that creep I didn't want to?"

Through the mask his jaw was locked, and it took a long time for him to force the words out. "If you didn't sleep with Toshio…"

"I've not been with anyone since you," she said quietly.

He was speechless. Although she doubted she'd done the right thing, it was too late to take it back. His expression hadn't changed, and she realised belatedly that she'd never seen the moment that bleak comprehension had dawned in his dark eye, and she wondered if he'd already known... if he'd already suspected the truth since the moment he'd sat down with her.

He'd wanted her to deny it. Instead she'd devastated him.

Very slowly, he sat back, disappearing into shadow. "You said you were protected," she heard him say faintly. "You _promised _ me it was safe. I trusted you."

And she'd let him down. "I thought I was…" she whispered and pressed the heels of her palms pressed hard to her eyes.

"I noticed back in Konoha you were… but you told me it was because you were _sick,_" he breathed, sounding winded and not unlike how she'd felt when she'd first found out. "I actually believed you. Why… why didn't you tell me truth?"

Strange how a man who had spent his life lying to those around him had never fathomed for a second that Sakura had been dishonest with him. He'd been too trusting.

"I could barely admit it to myself, what makes you think it would be easy for me to admit it to you?" she croaked. "I was scared and when I got the courage to tell to you, you just disappeared. So I came here. I left you that message in your apartment because I didn't know what to decide without you. So what do you think I should have done? Do you still think I should have gotten rid of it?"

Kakashi watched her mutely, like a passive observer with no part on the proceedings. She'd seen it before in her medical career. They called it 'acute stress reaction'. Or shock.

If he felt any of the fear and panic she'd felt, he deserved it and more. She stood, ignoring her tears and ignoring the pain that felt like a yawning void in the middle of her chest. She placed her hand over her belly, emphasising the faint curve that was now just visible through her clothes as she levelled unsympathetic eyes on him.

"Would you like to feel your baby?" she asked coldly.

* * *

A strangled scream rang throughout the hospital room.

Shikamaru snorted and sat up abruptly; the book that had been lying across his face flopped onto his lap. "What?" he slurred, looking around with a pounding heart to locate the source of the trouble. A few feet away he saw Ino flailing about on the floor next to her gurney, clawing desperately at her throat.

Ah, he thought. Only Ino.

He crossed to the door and jerked it open to see the nurse's station outside. "Get the Hokage," he told the sole nurse sitting at the desk, before dashing back inside to reach down for the fallen girl.

"Shikamaru!" she gasped, clutching at his arms and vest. "Shikamaru – is my head still on?!"

He dutifully checked. "Yes," he said carefully.

Ino's face screwed up and her whole body convulsed. "_Urgh!_ My head – it was off – I was falling but part of me was still on the branch and – _ooh – _I'll kill that Kakashi-sensei next time I see him!"

"What?" Shikamaru said faintly as he helped her back onto the gurney she'd toppled off. "Why?"

"He cut my head off! That's why!"

Ino was too inconsolable with rage and shock to speak for the next few minutes. She simply sat and shivered and drank the tea Shikamaru gave her in tiny sips exactly three seconds apart. There was no point pressing her for answers until she calmed down a little and stopped shaking like a badly frightened hamster.

She was still sipping her completely drained cup of tea when Tsunade sailed into the hospital room, closely followed by Shizune.

"You're back then," the Hokage said to Ino, taking in her appearance with a unsympathetic eyes. "How did it go?"

"It was like you said," Ino said in a tremulous rush. "I took the hawk over the border to the estate, and I got lost a few times – things look really different from above, you know? I got to the estate anyway, but it was really dark and I couldn't see well, and I was wondering if I'd have to wait for morning because it seemed like everyone had gone to bed and all I could find were some shinobi patrolling. Then I saw her. Her hair really stands out, right? She was in some room upstairs with the window open."

"So she's ok?" Shizune asked, visibly relaxing with relief.

Ino's eyes darted sideways. "I don't know about that…" she said bleakly.

"What do you mean?" Tsunade asked, her own eyes narrowing.

"She was with Kakashi-sensei," the still trembling girl explained.

Both Tsunade and Shizune gave each other exasperated looks and Tsunade even threw up her hands. "_That's _where he's been," she hissed through clenched teeth. "I swear he kept pestering me where she was. Well, what the hell's he doing there? He's supposed to be holding the border against Iwa!"

"Maybe he heard about the emergency transmission she sent and went to help?" Shizune suggested weakly.

"Before it had even come in? He's fast, but he's not that fast." Tsunade gave her a sour look. "Something's going on…"

Shizune didn't know how else to defend her friend. "Well, I-"

"Ino," Tsunade interrupted, "Did you get a close look?"

"More than that, I flew smack into the tree outside their window and heard every word. I tried to let them know it was me, but Kakashi-sensei took my head off," Ino squeaked, rubbing her neck again. "I was certain he'd know it was me, but I guess not… and I suppose he was kinda on edge. It was sort of a _private _conversation."

Tsunade scowled and folded her arms. "A _what _conversation?"

Ino, already pale, went a shade even paler and glanced at Shikamaru. "Go stand outside," she told him.

"What the hell?" Shikamaru looked around at her. "I rank higher than you. How can I not be privy to this?"

"Shikamaru, it's personal! Go away!" she snapped.

Looking as confused as the other two women, he sighed and slunk out of the room with a 'whatever' shrug of his shoulders. Once alone, Tsunade looked back at Ino, completely still and speculative. "I'm assuming there was a reason for that," she said. "Since you kicked the only man in the room out, I suspect female troubles…"

"In a manner of speaking," Ino said quietly. "I'm not really sure how to say this."

"What is it?" Shizune asked her gently.

"Spit it out!" Tsunade ordered.

Ino bit her lip. "I think Sakura's pregnant."

* * *

Next Chapter: _Aki's Warning_


	19. Aki's Warning

**House of Crows**

Chapter Eighteen: Aki's Warning

* * *

_Your face don't look like before,_

_It's really not like yours any more…_

* * *

There were no words.

That was all he could think as he stared at her, or more specifically at her belly. Kakashi had never been able to decide if he was an eloquent kind of man. Under ordinary social situations he often found it difficult to think of interesting things to say, so he'd earned the reputation of a quiet man. But when the need or the occasion demanded it, he had no trouble articulating himself so concisely and calmly, and even savagely, that he'd also earned the added warning: '_beware _the quiet one'.

Kakashi was no stranger to the occasional stumble or stutter, but they were rare. It was rarer still to find himself utterly speechless. He looked at her. She'd asked him a question, but there were no words. What was he supposed to say in a situation like this? What did she expect him to feel, let alone demonstrate?

Why did it feel like he felt… nothing?

She touched his limp hand, lifting it towards her so he could feel for himself the undeniable proof of his deed. He jerked like he'd been shocked, snapping his hand back before his fingers came into contact with her front. She didn't look surprised at him, or even hurt. Instead she just looked as grim and angry as ever.

"It doesn't change anything," she said in a low voice. "What difference does it make if it's yours or Toshio's? You're as bad as each other as far as I'm concerned, and you being the father won't magically make me a better person to be a mother. So where does that leave us?"

"I…" There were still no words.

"'I' what?" Sakura repeated condescendingly. Like Karasu had noticed, it was very much like being scolded by your parent.

He swallowed. "I have to leave."

Her fist slipped off her hip. "What?" she asked, confused.

"I have to go," he said again, a little more quietly, as he began to push away from the table and stand.

"_Sensei,"_ she hissed, glaring at him. "Don't you dare!"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. His eyes searched for escape only, and before he realise it he was passing through aisles and aisles of bookcases, ignoring Sakura's angry calls behind him that grew angrier just as they grew fainter. Perhaps she even called him by his name. He was a little too distracted to notice.

Kakashi was running. To an outside observer he might have looked as if he was only walking at a slightly hurried pace like a man with somewhere important to be, but in truth, Kakashi had no idea where he was going. He was just walking. He had to walk, because if he stopped he would remember that he couldn't breathe, and if he ran, it could be miles before he remembered how to slow down.

He came to a dead end in the corridor and was confronted with the sight of his bedroom door. He recognised the faint floral patterns twirling up the panels of the shoji paper, and the faint tear in the lower right corner where some former resident or servant had kicked it accidentally. He'd noticed these features before, of course… but now they seemed magnified chaotically as his senses struggled comprehend the world around him in the wake of his sanity's desertion.

He hovered there dizzily, eyes closed and hands leant against the plastered wall. He could feel his heart beating too hard and hear the rasping of his own breath in his ear, but nothing more than that. It was as if the world had shrunk painfully around him. All he could see in his mind was Sakura standing there, half painted in moonlight as she flattened her hand against her belly

She'd even reached out to take his hand and invite him to touch her, but that was all he'd needed.

Kakashi thrust open the door of his room and forced himself inside. He had to sit down. A pounding headache had started behind his eyes, thumping away in time to his heartbeat. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples.

What the hell had he done…?

Something stirred softly in his bed. A soft, feminine sigh made him slowly turn around look blankly at the pale woman in his bed. Wide red lips smiled in greeting and attractively sleepy eyes twinkled in amusement. "You look awful," she told him.

Inside him, a little thread of panic twisted tighter. "Not tonight, Reika," he whispered.

"You're kidding me, right?" she said flatly.

"No. Just leave. Please." He said it politely, but he knew he was at the end of his tether.

"Kakashi, if something is the matter, you can tell me," she cajoled with a sympathetic pout .

"Just go, Reika," he bit out.

She didn't move, instead she only frowned at him. "Seriously, what's the matter?" she demanded, her irritation rising to match his.

At that point he turned and kicked the leg right off the desk chair beside him. The leg spun and dented the wall, but the chair hardly even teetered. "Get out," he snapped, thrusting a finger at the open door. "_Now_."

"What?!" Reika shrieked, shooting upright. "Don't you dare speak to me like that!"

"I just did. Now get out!" he all but roared at her. "I don't want you in my bed! I don't want you in my room! I don't want _you_!"

The woman turned red with anger as she reached down to clutch the sheets around herself more modestly. "What's gotten into you?"

"Enough of the act, Reika!" He strode to the side of the bed and unearthed the backpack hiding underneath it. "I am sick of this! I know exactly why you're here and why you're always here, and I don't care. I don't want to rule this clan. I don't want a wife. I don't want children. I've never wanted any of these things, so just… so just go."

Reika's wide mouth was a thin, trembling line. "Well," she said snippily, bending over the side of the bed to gather her clothes, "I can see when I'm not wanted. I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but when you change your mind later, you can kiss my ass."

She regally strode from the room swathed in the top sheet of his bedcovers with her clothes under one arm. The moment the door slid shut after her, Kakashi sat down heavily on the mattress and lapsed into silence to match the sudden peculiar emptiness in his head.

Sakura was lying. She had to be. She'd been betrayed and held here against her will, and she was doing what any ninja in a vulnerable position had been trained to do; she was attempting to manipulate her captor. He knew for a fact that she'd been on birth control because she'd told him she was on the injection like virtually every other kunoichi in Konoha. She'd said she was protected. How could she have made such a catastrophic mistake and waited till now to drop it on him?

There were plenty of reasons to lie. Was she trying to rearrange his priorities? He wanted her out of the way and out of contact with Konoha for his own self-preservation, but what if that meant Sakura was at risk? What if that meant an unborn _child_ was at risk? Did she think he would be more willing to compromise himself for the sake of a kid – his own kid – if not for her?

This was a clever and conniving woman to be sure, but this would be a deeply cynical lie even for her. The date of birth would be telling, because there was a good month or two between their visit to Jonan and her arrival at this place. If it was his, it would be born in April. If it was Toshio's, it would be May or June. But that was next year, and by then Sakura could be back in Konoha if she got her own way and he'd either be in stocks or on the run, at which point it didn't matter if she'd lied, only that it had worked when it was required.

But then why had Pakkun told him her scent hadn't changed? And why would she already be showing if it was only a few weeks?

His only experience of pregnancy was through Kurenai, and he remembered clearly when she was three months along with her daughter. He remembered because it had still been impossible to tell the difference, even to those who had known. Sakura's yukata may not been designed to emphasise curves – quite the opposite – but now that she'd shown him it was plain to see her waistline had begun to expand a little.

Then there was the mysterious vanishing nausea and inexplicable fatigue; all easily symptoms of someone stressing too much over their financial situation… and all easily symptoms of a difficult first few weeks of pregnancy. He'd never thought anything of it at the time, and even now he recalled how Kurenai had floated through her first months like a serene bodhisattva and wondered how Sakura could experience the same thing so _differently_.

There had even been the note. He'd thought it odd, how desperately she'd wanted to contact him the moment he got back from his mission, but then she'd also wanted to talk to him before he'd left, hadn't she? He only now vaguely recalled that they'd never had that talk…

Everything she'd told him in the library just now… all of it rang horribly true. She _had_ tried to tell him. She _did_ have means of protecting herself from Toshio. The only man she'd ever been with… was Kakashi.

"Shit…" he swore softly to himself and rubbed his hands over his face.

It almost didn't matter who the father was, as she had said. The fact was that Sakura was pregnant and she was now deep in enemy territory with no chakra or equipment to her name. He was tempted to call her an idiot – oh, what the hell, she _was _an idiot!

Midwifery mustn't have been part of the syllabus of her medic training, otherwise she would have known some pregnant kunoichi found their chakra muted due to incompatibility with the chakra type of the baby. Hell, even _he _knew that. Having a handful of married friends, who themselves seemed to be move in the more exclusive parental circles, he'd inevitable heard of someone who had heard of someone who had suffered an incompatibility issue. It only happened when the infant possessed an elemental affinity that was the direct elemental advantage of the mother's own natural affinity. Being that Sakura was an earth type, the baby must have been of the lightning type… and it was bewildering for Kakashi to think that already it was taking after him.

There really was no denying this. The suspicions Pakkun had given him when he saw Sakura's scent was unchanged had been confirmed, no matter how desperately he might try to rationalise it otherwise.

He looked distractedly at the backpack in his hand and pulled it onto the bed beside him. At least, he thought, chakra incompatibility wasn't a dangerous condition. His only concern was that it left Sakura particularly vulnerable in this place.

Especially when Kakashi couldn't stay here any longer.

* * *

"You're leaving? But you only just got here."

"It's unavoidable, I'm afraid."

"Hm." Karasu reached under his nightshirt to scratch his belly as he yawned widely. "Why's it so dark?"

Kakashi reached out and tugged up the sleep mask covering the other man's eyes. "Better?" he asked.

Karasu looked around his bedroom. "It's still very dark. Could it be that you actually woke me up _in the middle of the night_, Kakashi?" he asked flatly.

"I didn't want to leave without telling you."

"Couldn't it have waited till morning?" the clan head began yawning again. "I'd punch you if you were anyone else."

"I know."

"Would there be any particular reason why you have to leave now?"

Yes. He had to go back to Konoha immediately because right now Sakura's annoying blonde friend – the female one – was probably telling as many people as she could about Sakura and himself, and he didn't quit trust Tsunade not to totally overreact and do something extremely contradictory to Kakashi's plans. "They're expecting me," he said instead. "I'm becoming Hokage, remember?"

"Ah," Karasu nodded. In his half-awake state he probably didn't realise that this still wasn't a particularly good excuse to be leaving in the middle of the night. "Good luck with that."

"Goodbye, Karasu."

Karasu waved vaguely as he pulled the sleep mask down and turned over, determined to get back to sleep. Having done his duty of informing his superior of his departure, Kakashi turned to leave as quietly as he had entered. As his fingers touched the door handle, Karasu lifted his head, "When you see Sable, give her a red flower," he said.

Kakashi paused. "Why?" he asked carefully

"She'll give you a present, that's why. It's all arranged," Karasu said. "Now stop asking and leave or you'll ruin the surprise."

"I hate it when you organise things behind my back," Kakashi pointed out testily.

"No, trust me. You'll like this one." He chuckled to himself and let his head drop back against the pillow again.

Kakashi paused for a tense moment before releasing a small sigh and slipping out when it became clear that Karasu had said all he meant to say. As he strode down the corridors with his backpack strapped over his shoulders, Kakashi reached into his pocket and withdrew two scrolls; one of them he used to summon Pakkun.

"What is it?" the pug panted as he trotted after him.

Kakashi paused to tuck the second scroll into a pouch behind Pakkun's neck. "You're to give this to Sakura," he said with a slight croak in his voice.

Pakkun cocked his head. "Can't you give it to her yourself?"

"I have to leave," Kakashi explained. "I want you to stay behind with her. Give her this, and if anything happens, tell her to open it, and if all else you're to protect her."

Pakkun's head cocked the other way. "Wild Orchid can protect herself pretty well," he pointed out. "There's not much I could do in a crisis…"

"Not anymore," Kakashi told his summon tightly. "She's been weakened."

"How?"

"Pregnancy does that sometimes."

Pakkun's small, wrinkly face split into a tongue-lolling grin. "So she really is pregnant? I _did _tell you she was different back in Konoha. Back when you were wondering if she hated you, I told you she stank of fear and something else… I guess that was it. It's nice to finally put a name to a smell, ya know." He said it a little defensively, perhaps still concerned Kakashi intended to trade him in for a new canine. "But that wasn't so long after you mated with her. Does this mean it was you?"

Kakashi sighed. You couldn't hide much from a dog's nose. "Looks like it. Either way, she has a chakra incompatibility syndrome so she'll need watching."

"Is it dangerous?" Pakkun asked.

"Not in itself, no. But she'll be defenceless against attack, and I also need you to make sure she stays here."

Pakkun stared at him. "If it's not dangerous, why aren't you happy?" he pointed out.

"Why the hell would I be happy?" Kakashi snapped as they turned a corner. Everything was falling apart, connected only by fraying threads that would snap the second he did anything wrong. He was probably beginning to grey.

"You're having puppies, who wouldn't be happy? They're always cute, everyone admires them, and they become great allies once they stop biting your tail and pulling your ears. I've had two litters, you know."

"Humans don't have puppies," Kakashi said with waning patience. "There's a war on and the last thing I need is a pregnant girl at the heart of it. Excuse me if I'm not leaping for joy."

Pakkun muttered something inaudible which most probably included the words 'strange', 'backward' and 'humans'.

Kakashi entered the dark, drafty corridor of the house servants' wing. It probably wasn't a good idea to come this way, and if he had sense he would skip this and leave immediately. But he had to see her. He had to look at her and try to comprehend the enormity of what she was carrying. Of what it represented.

He stopped outside one of the rooms and felt the slow pulse of his own chakra within the room, given off by the mark he'd placed on her. Silently he pushed the door open and peered into the near impenetrable darkness of the room on the other side. Cautiously he pushed up his hitai-ate to focus the sharingan on the four futons within. Three of them were occupied, one by the brown haired maid he'd accosted the previous day, another by a tall one he didn't recognised, and a third by his very own Sakura.

She was curled half on her back and half on her side with the covers pulled up to her ears. She hadn't detected him. In her current state she was as fragile and vulnerable as the other girls in this room.

Pakkun circled around him. "Better stake out a good place to sleep," he sighed, and slipped into the dark room. Kakashi knew he could trust the pug to be a discreet but alert watchdog, but he still found himself reluctant to leave. He'd had so very little opportunity to get her alone and get past that iron cast exterior of suspicion in order to truly talk to her. He had very little option though. He had to get back to Konoha before Ino reported her findings to Tsunade and the Hokage sent a battalion of ANBU to rescue her apprentice.

Kakashi's gaze travelled over Sakura's sleeping form and heard her slow, measured breathing. She really was more tolerable when asleep, because if she was awake now she'd probably be throwing something at his head. The universe most likely hated him to have thrust this situation upon him, but the universe's wrath paled in comparison to one of its creature's named Haruno Sakura.

A squeaking door further along the corridor made him look around, but already it was too late to move. The black-haired maid emerged from a room to his left – probably the bathroom, and the first thing she saw was Kakashi hanging in the doorway of her and Sakura's room.

She froze.

Very carefully, Kakashi stepped back and slid the door shut, before heading down the corridor towards the dark-haired girl.

She shrank against the wall a little and averted her eyes to the ground. As he passed her she ducked into a respectful bow and muttered, "Kakashi-sama."

Immediately he caught sight of the name stitched into the back of her collar. Ah. Now he remembered her. "Aki," he said, drawing to a stop a few feet behind her. "What did that look like to you?"

"Nothing, sir," she said quickly. No good servant let anyone think they could form opinions and make guesses about the business of the people they served. But Kakashi could guess at what she thought she saw. And she probably wasn't thinking how much it looked like a man looking in on the woman he'd impregnated who also happened to be a spy from Konoha who was now attempting to pass the child off as some other asshole's child. In this he felt confident.

"If anything happens to that girl while I am gone," he said slowly, "you will tell me, won't you Aki?"

"Yessir," she replied with an emphatic nod that was a more of her anxiety for him to leave than out of any desire to do his bidding.

He sighed, knowing he had to accept things the way they were. His control was limited, and he had to leave it up to Pakkun now to keep Sakura on a leash and depend upon Sakura's practical common sense to keep herself safe from harm.

Although common sense and Sakura were two concepts that very rarely matched up.

"Thank you," he said softly and continued on his way. Every step was difficult, and already he felt that he was going the wrong way and leaving something very important behind. Fortunately his head still overruled his heart, and he set off into the dark forest, feeling the beat of Sakura's mark grow weaker and weaker until he could no longer feel it at all.

* * *

Sakura gave a bone cracking yawn as she took her seat at the breakfast table. Soup… she fancied soup today. And apples. Was there such a thing as apple soup? Would anyone mind if she invented it this morning?

For once she was glad of her bizarre appetite. The longer she stared at the food and thought about how hungry she was, the less she thought of last night in the library when she'd finally managed to break it to Kakashi that she was having his child. However she had expected him to react, in all the countless simulations she'd gone through in her head since the day she'd discovered the pregnancy, she had never expected him to just get up and _walk off_.

All in all, that was probably a bad sign. He'd never struck her as especially broody, so she shouldn't have been surprised that he didn't want children. And what he'd said when he'd thought it was Toshio's spoke volumes about his true thoughts. He didn't think she was capable. He didn't think she was ready. He didn't think what she would gain would be worth what she would lose, and he'd been so adamant about terminating it.

He was right, of course. She wasn't ready to be a mother and at this rate it clear that she would be a single mother. There was always adoption, she supposed, and this she had always known would be her fallback. There had to be a kind, loving couple somewhere who desperately wanted a child as desperately as Sakura didn't. If she could find that couple, perhaps things would work out alright. The baby would have a mother and a father and a stable home and Sakura could go back to her own life… and live with the knowledge for the rest of her life that she had a child out there somewhere whom she would never meet.

Sakura drank her miso soup deeply and laid the empty bowl down on the table before resuming her thoughtless stare into the distance as she once more thought about the look that had come over Kakashi's face when she'd told him she was three months pregnant. Disappointment… anger… fear…and then he'd fled.

Where was he now? With his clan? With Karasu? In his bed still fast asleep without any thought whatsoever to her and the combination of their DNA growing inside her.

Aki slid into the seat beside Sakura with a rustle of clothing. "Morning," she said in her slightly hoarse morning voice. She fetched herself some toast out of a rack in the middle of the table.

"Morning," Sakura returned, and for a while the girls ate in silence, half listening to the conversations of other people around the table.

Sakura noticed Kaoru had decided to forgo sitting with them in favour of sitting next to Haru, the cute boy from the mews. He didn't look in Sakura's direction much anymore. As she'd predicted, girls were not nearly as attractive once you found out they were pregnant by someone else. That, and with everyone saying Toshio was the father, he was probably right not to want to get mixed up in that.

Then there was Yui, sitting several places away with that permanently stony expression that seemed frozen on her face all the time these days. In a way, Sakura felt sorry for her. Yui had once been the heart of this little group, but now she sat by herself speaking to no one, and the only eye contact she ever made with anyone was the occasional hostile stare she sent in Sakura's direction. It made her want to sigh. But Yui had only brought this on herself with her own behaviour and her own faulty personality. When she decided to love a slime ball like Toshio, she had chosen to spend the rest of her life in misery, hating every other woman who ever caught his eye. To her, it was not Toshio's fault. Never Toshio's fault. If anyone was to blame it was the slut who had provoked him, whether that be a drunken Kaoru at a birthday celebration, or 'new girl' Sakura in the library.

They practically deserved one another.

"How did you sleep?" Aki asked her lightly.

Sakura dragged her eyes from Yui and glanced at the dark-haired girl next to her. "Well enough." If she hadn't been so typically exhausted, she might not have slept a wink last night after that horrible confrontation with Kakashi in the library. But fortunately she'd managed to sleep like a log and had woken feeling as fresh as a daisy, if very down-hearted.

"I hear Hatake Kakashi has left," Aki went on. "I saw him last night and wondered, but it's definitely all over the estate that he's gone."

Sakura, who had been in the process of reaching for an apple, banged her knuckles against the pot of soup. Her mouth opened to demand 'What?! Why?! How could he?!' but nothing came out. She groped for her apple and settled back down to take a swift bite. "Mm." She hummed noncommittally around her mouthful.

But Aki could see how her apple shook.

"Oh, Sakura," she said, taking her free hand between hers. "Don't let yourself be seduced."

"P-Pardon?" _A bit late for that_, she thought.

"I know he's a handsome man and a smooth talker… but I tried to warn you about him," Aki sighed. "You haven't been encouraging him have you?"

"I don't even know who you're talking about," Sakura said hotly, munching more apple to try and hide her nerves.

Aki looked disbelieving. "He seems to know you…" she said dubiously. "I saw him near our room last night when I went to the bathroom. He was watching you sleep. Don't you think that's creepy?"

Yes… actually, she did. But the revelation left her surprised and a little confused. Had he really come to their room? And should she be unnerved that she hadn't sensed him and woken up, or should she be wondering why he'd been there at all?

"Well, he's gone now," Aki continued. "For good, hopefully. I just think you ought to be careful around people like him, Sakura."

"I don't understand what you mean," she whispered. "I don't see how he's any worse than the rest of them."

"You're new here, so you probably don't understand the Hatake clan," Aki replied, looking around. "I'll tell you everything, but we should probably go somewhere more discreet. I have to go tidy the twins' rooms. Come with me."

Grabbing a few more apples and oranges to hide up her sleeve, Sakura followed Aki out of the breakfast and deeper into the house where the family's main bed chambers lay. This was of course a violation of the duty roster Yui had so carefully planned for Sakura, who should have been cleaning toilets right then, but Aki probably knew more about the Hatake clan than anyone else here who was willing to talk to her, and Sakura would not pass this opportunity up. If not for herself, than it was for the mission.

The twins would be playing in one of the downstairs rooms, so the two maids could go about their tidying unmolested. It was staggering that even though their bedroom was tidied every day, by morning the next day, everything that had been in cupboards and on tables and in drawers and under beds was now strewn across the floor. Toys littered every surface, including the walls and the ceiling. Sakura looked at it all apprehensively. Was this the kind of thing to expect when you had children? She could barely keep after herself…

"Help me with the beds," Aki said, grabbing one side of a rumpled quilt while Sakura grabbed the other. As they flapped and straightened and folded, Aki began to talk. "You know I'm from the Hatake clan, don't you? I'm only a half-breed though. My father was a member of one of the lower houses, and my mother was like me; just a maid, no one special. As a rule, the Hatake clan doesn't like when you breed outside the clan and without permission, but they don't care as much when it comes to the distant branch families. We're viewed as impure anyway. Still, when my father died, I was sent to work here. It was as much to get me out of the way as it was to plant eyes and ears in the Zuru household. I'm a spy here, Sakura."

Then they had a lot in common. Sakura gave her a suitably amazed expression, even though she had already wondered at Aki's placement on the staff here.

"The clan's very conscious of blood," she went on. "The founder of the clan was a great man who lived over two hundred years ago. He was one of the leaders of the revolution that broke apart the empire. It's always been the case that the title of clan leader would be passed down directly through his bloodline, from eldest son to eldest son. It's an unbroken line that extends right down to this day."

"With Karasu," Sakura nodded.

"No," Aki said sharply. "With Kakashi."

Sakura frowned. "I don't understand…"

"You know how I told you that the clan doesn't take kindly to members marrying outside the family, well this goes double for those in the upper house. And the Hatake clan is nomadic and always has been. When all the clans throughout the land began to settle down and form villages, the Hatake clan resisted and have resented it to this day. Before the villages, there were just ninja clans always at war with one another, lending themselves out to anyone with the money and the need, and the Hatake clan was one of the most ferocious. But once the villages began to appear, the clans began to disappear, and the Hatake clan fell into obscurity. It's no longer the fearsome presence it used to be against the combined forces of the hidden villages.."

"What about you?" Sakura asked.

"What do I care? I'm no ninja, and I could care less what the upper house wants," she said. "But the village they hate the most is Konoha, because they're the ones that began the revolution, you see? So if there's anything the clan hates more than one of the upper house marrying outside the clan and without permission… it would be if they married a woman from Konoha."

Slightly affronted, Sakura asked, "Is that so bad?"

"To the upper house, it's treason. The last direct descendant of the founder was a man named Hatake Sakumo. You've probably heard of him. In your country, he's called the White Fang."

Sakura _had_ heard of him. Of course she had. Who hadn't? She also knew that he'd been Kakashi's father…

"The White Fang was just like all those before him, perhaps even more exemplary. He was a great leader for many years, until he had the misfortune to meet a kunoichi from Konoha. He fell in love and he did the unthinkable – he settled in Konoha."

"What about the clan?" Sakura asked. Neither of them were pretending to work anymore. Now they just sat on the edge of the bed they'd finished making, whispering with their heads close together.

"That was the thing, right? He wanted the clan to settle with him and give up their nomadic ways. But when they learnt what he'd done, the upper house was furious. They tore up his lineage and wiped him from the family tree, which was unheard of, and for the first time in two hundred years, the line of descent was broken. The White Fang was the oldest of two sons, and since it was out of the question that one of his sisters take over, the title of clan heir jumped to the White Fang's younger brother. That man died about twelve years ago now, and since then his son, Karasu, has assumed the title. But he's not the true heir, and everyone knows that. The woman the White Fang married may have been from Konoha, but she was an elite kunoichi – the kind that the upper house craves in order to bring fresh blood. So everyone's in two minds about his son. He's the direct descendant of the founder of the clan, but he bears the sins of his father and some of the clan are not comfortable with him around. They all suspect he lusts after the title that he's been robbed of; even Karasu. That's why Karasu brings him as close as he dares.

"Hatake Kakashi is an extremely dangerous man if even Karasu fears him. One day there'll be blood, and then it won't be safe to be acquainted with that man. The last time someone tried to take the title of heir by force he was slaughtered, along with his wife and his lovers and his children and his siblings until his entire line was wiped out. So please understand when I tell you to be careful. Don't get involved in the affairs of this clan."

"It might be a little too late for that," Sakura whispered, touching a hand to the front of her apron. "How well do you know him?" she asked Aki.

"No one really knows him," the other girl replied," that's half the problem. He's spent almost his whole life in Konoha… so who's to say he hasn't been contaminated by them?"

If only that were true. But if Kakashi was loyal to Konoha, he wouldn't have been keeping secrets and sabotaging missions. He was dangerous alright, but not all for the same reasons Aki believed. He was no danger to _her_ clan, but to Sakura's village he was nothing but a rat.

"They certainly seem to trust him over there," Aki said flatly.

They had no reason not to, but… "How do you know?" Sakura asked her carefully.

"Well, they're making him their Hokage, aren't they?"

Sakura's head snapped up. "What?"

"That's what they were saying yesterday in the hall. Probably why he's gone back there too."

Sakura felt numb and breathless, and suddenly it was hard to see. She felt not unlike that day when she'd been forced on a mission the day after she'd found out she was pregnant; hot and cold and as faint as she was violently ill. "Excuse me," she muttered. "Um… I don't feel so good, Aki. I think I need to go to the bathroom…"

"Is it the baby?" Aki fretted. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, no… I'll be fine."

Sakura slipped quickly to her feet and left the room in a rush. She wasn't lying. She _didn't_ feel well, and as she hurried down the stairs and corridor to the servant's toilets she felt so peculiar and dizzy that she wasn't sure if she'd make it in time. And she kept getting the strange sense that she was being followed, even though she heard or so no one behind her.

Once in the bathroom, she barged into a stall and sat down on the cool, tiled floor.

Kakashi… as Hokage?

Tsunade had mentioned it once or twice in the past whenever she made noises about what she planned to do when she retired, but Sakura had never thought that would happen any time soon. So why now, in the middle of a conflict? Had something happened to Tsunade? Normally Sakura might have agreed Kakashi was the most suitably replacement, but not after all she'd learnt about him…

She had to contact Konoha. She regretted ever delaying in the first place out of misplaced trust in Kakashi. Now her chakra was gone, her equipment and scrolls were destroyed… she couldn't summon her cats, she had no radio and no jutsu that would serve her purpose. She could send a letter the old fashioned way, but it was impossible to send anything addressed to Konoha or its outposts without raising questions. There were always messenger birds, but would the estate even own any that would fly to Konoha?

Perhaps if she could get to Amegakure…?

The soft _clip clippity clip _of nails on tiles made Sakura freeze, her heart pounding hard in her chest. She heard a deep, wheezy kind of snuffling and after a moment, four pale and squat legs appeared under the door of her stall. Then she saw a familiar wrinkly face.

"Oh, hallo Wild Orch- Sakura," Pakkun said.

Sakura stared at him for a moment, wondering if she was even on friendly terms with this animal. She hated Kakashi, but did that extend to his summons? It wasn't like Pakkun was responsible for the things Kakashi had done. Then again, summons were bound to their summoners in a way that left little doubt as to whose side Pakkun was on.

So she opted for a neutral but cold, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Kakashi left me behind to keep an eye on you."

"To make sure I don't escape," she deduced

"To make sure you're safe," he corrected as he squatted down. "Can you open the door? I could wiggle under, but I'm kinda carrying something."

"So?"

"So… it's for you."

"I don't want anything, thanks."

"It's from Kakashi."

"Then I _definitely_ don't want it," she hissed, shuffling towards the furthest wall behind the toilet. "Now go away."

Pakkun gave a heavy sigh and his face disappeared for a moment as he stood again and shook himself exuberantly and repeatedly until something clattered to the ground beside him. He picked it up in his teeth and, much to Sakura's lament, he began to wriggle underneath the stall door.

"A scroll," she remarked flatly as he dropped it next to her knee. "What's in it?"

"I have no idea," Pakkun sat and panted next to the toilet basin set in the floor. "He said not to open it until a real emergency."

Sakura picked up the slightly slavered on scroll and regarded it apathetically. What she really wanted were her own scrolls with her own jutsu and her own senbon and knives and kunai. "He does _know_ that I can't use chakra, doesn't he?" Sakura pointed out. "What good's a scroll if I can't activate it?"

"Some of his chakra is sealed inside so it's probably automatic, and that's why you're not supposed to open it until you need to."

As Sakura fiddled unhappily with the frayed, papery edges of the scroll, Pakkun stuck his head in the well of the toilet and began lapping at the water. It was a good thing, Sakura thought, that Yui had made her scrub these very same toilets yesterday. Kakashi had once claimed that his dogs were the epitome of hygiene after Sakura had refused to let any one of them lick her face; a claim which she could now thoroughly debunk.

A pang of hurt squeezed her heart just to think of that small moment from the past. There wouldn't be any more memories like that. There would never be a casual moment again when she sat next to Kakashi outside the veterinary surgery and reassured him that 'dead tail' wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. Or when they sat on top of the Hokage monument on cold days, trading the contents of their bento boxes until they were satisfied with their food or until they were fighting over ownership of the last onigiri.

Sakura looked at Pakkun. He was carrying out Kakashi's orders… but his personality was strong. He had his own mind. Surely he knew the difference between right and wrong and could think independently like Dokko did?

"Did you know your master's working for the enemy?" she asked him pointedly.

Pakkun rolled his head back to her. Toilet water dribbled liberally down his chins. "That depends who you ask."

"It's not a grey issue, Pakkun," she said snippily. "The enemy of Konoha is the syndicate, and Kakashi is part of that. Do you actually defend that?"

"I don't know," the dog said with a canine shrug. "I trust Kakashi. He does the right thing most of the time, and I doubt he's as bad as you're making out."

"He's helping destroy Konoha," she pointed out. "He's becoming Hokage – and a man who traps a pregnant girl in a crazy mansion so that no one finds out he's a traitor is not fit to be Hokage!"

"You're probably right," Pakkun grunted.

"So… so help me find a way out of here. Or maybe you can get a message to Konoha for me? Just tell them what's going on and-"

"Sakura," he interrupted in a low, reproachful tone. "You know as well as I do that the contract between summons and humans is written and sealed in blood… among other nameless bodily fluids. I can no more go against Kakashi's wishes that Dokko could go against yours-"

"Dokko _always_ goes against my wishes," Sakura said bitterly.

"Yes, well… cats are like that. You should have made a contract with us dogs. Loyalty is our middle name. The only thing cats are good for is scratching your furniture and flavouring our biscuits."

A soft snort of laughter escaped Sakura and she ducked her head against her eyes. But it wasn't until she felt moisture on her fingers that she realised she was crying. Her throat began to ache with the effort of holding onto the tattered shred of her emotions, and Pakkun wiggled his tail nervously, sensing something was wrong with her face.

"Why did he just leave?" she asked in bewilderment. "This is the biggest, most _awful_ thing that's ever happened to me, and when I tell him… he just leaves without a word."

"What big awful thing?" Pakkun asked.

Sakura pressed a hand over her stomach. "_This _big awful thing!_"_

"It's quite big, but I wouldn't say it's too awful."

"What do you know? You're a dog," Sakura sniffed contemptuously, before adding, "And you're male."

"You're right. I am both of those."

"But you're not going to help me," she finished softly.

He sighed and blinked up at her. "Trust in Kakashi."

Sakura looked at the pug's squashed black face and considered his words. He and Kakashi had always been her allies, always dependable. In the heat of battle she'd never ever questioned or doubted Kakashi's orders and he'd never led her wrong.

But things were different now, so Sakura could only give him a helpless shrug as she whispered, "I can't."

* * *

"Hokage wants a word with you."

That was the first thing anyone said to him the moment he strode through the gates of Konoha. Normally after three days of non-stop travel, he'd be inclined to conveniently ignore the hint that he was wanted in the Hokage tower and go back to his apartment instead to rest and shower. This time, however, the less time he wasted, the better. He'd come home as a matter of urgency after all.

At the foot of the Hokage tower, Shizune and Genma were loitering on the steps. The moment Kakashi appeared, Shizune gasped and flapped a hand at him. "Tsunade-sama wants to see you," she said. "You'd better go _now_."

As if it wasn't already pretty obvious where he was hurrying to. He only hoped he wasn't too late.

Ten flights of stairs were nothing when you were in a hurry and you were also a ninja. Kakashi quickly found the entrance of the Hokage's office and swept past the stuttering and indignant receptionist. Despite his urgency, he managed to pause long enough to rap his knuckles on the door in a restrained, indolent way that wouldn't betray him.

Tsunade's voice raised within. "Briefing a team. Go away."

"It's Kakashi," he answered.

There was a long pause before Tsunade spoke again. "You'd better come in then."

Not knowing quite what to expect, he pushed the door open.

Within the room, three people glared at him. The hokage always glared, so that wasn't unusual. Shikamaru's glare was more curious than malevolent, but he was still irked at the interruption. Ino's glare, on the other hand, was in a class of its own. If looks could cut, he would have toppled to the floor in two halves.

Not unlike how she'd done in the body of that bird…

As he came to a stop before the desk beside Ino, Tsunade's gaze wandered over him judgmentally. "Well this is certainly a surprise," she remarked coolly. "Shikamaru?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"Go stand outside."

"Oh for…" He didn't argue. He seemed to be used to it by now and simply gave a pointed roll of his eyes as he once more slunk out the door and shut it behind him a little more loudly than was perhaps necessary.

Ino continued to glare at him.

"Now," Tsunade began with such icy calmness that Kakashi could feel the room frosting over. "For the last few days, you've been AWOL. You were scheduled to lead an expedition to the border a week ago, so imagine my surprise when you were nowhere to be found. No note, no explanation, no _permission_. This is hardly the kind of behaviour I expect from a man I hope to succeed my title."

Kakashi lowered his head in a suitable display of disgrace. "I apologise, Hokage-sama," he said.

"Would you mind telling me where the hell you've _been_ for the last week?" she demanded.

She already knew, of course. Three days was plenty enough time for Ino to tell the Hokage exactly what she'd seen and heard, and he was lucky that a fleet of ANBU hadn't descended on the estate yet. He suspected the only reason that had yet to happened was because this woman still held a lingering trust for him. Kakashi could not afford to lie right now.

"To be honest, Hokage-sama," he said evenly, "I was with Sakura."

Tsunade's chin tilted up. She knew he was telling the truth at least, so he'd regained a modicum of her respect. "Go on."

"She contacted me several days ago and told me she wanted my help," he said. "Naturally I left immediately."

"Without giving me notice?"

"She told me not to." Kakashi had had three days to plan this story. There was nothing she could ask him that he hadn't already thought of an answer to. "She said it was an emergency, but of a delicate nature?"

"And what was that emergency?" Tsunade asked with a serene smile.

Kakashi glanced at the floor and rearranged his feet. This was difficult to admit, even though he knew she already had the facts. "Sakura is pregnant, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade switched her gaze to Ino who gave her a very significant look. "See? I _told_ you I hadn't misheard."

"Misheard what?" Kakashi said, feigning polite ignorance.

Ino whirled around to face him and jabbed a finger in his face. "_You,_" she hissed. _"YOU cut my head off!"_

He blinked innocently. "I don't think I did."

"Kaka-sensei – I was that bird outside the window! I opened my big stupid beak thinking you'd recognised me." She glared at him ferociously. "But obviously not."

To be fair, he had recognised her just fine. That was why he was here after all. "Oh," was all he decided to say. "Was that you?"

"Don't ever do that again!" she growled.

Kakashi glanced back at Tsunade behind her desk who was being deceptively quiet. And it wasn't the usual kind of quiet, which was like that of a tigress before she comes leaping out of the bushes to tear out your spleen. This was a subdued and far away kind of quietness that left a peculiar expression on her face. "Hokage-sama?" he hedged tentatively.

"Why would she contact _you_?" she asked without coming out of her distant stare.

"I've no idea," Kakashi said. "She did it through our summons."

"She also sent an emergency radio transmission around the same time you left."

Now Kakashi hadn't been expecting that. "She did?"

"She didn't tell you?"

Since it was safe to say that Sakura's trust in him wasn't at an all time high, there were probably many things Sakura had neglected to mention. "It must have skipped her mind," he said tightly. "What did it say?"

"It was interrupted and we grew concerned. That's why I sent Ino to scope the estate and figure out what was going on."

"Well," Kakashi said uncomfortably. "I'm sure she reported to you that all is quite well there."

"Aside from the fact that Sakura is pregnant."

"Aside from that, yes."

Tsunade's head dropped and she began pinching the bridge of her nose like she had one hell of a headache coming on. Kakashi and Ino watched her in uncertain silence. This wasn't like the Hokage. For learning her apprentice was pregnant, she was taking it remarkably calmly, although Kakashi knew he was probably three days late to the drama. He was quite glad he hadn't been in the room when Ino had told Tsunade what she'd overheard.

"Where is she?" The hokage asked him quietly.

"She's still at the estate," Kakashi replied.

The woman erupted, and there was no other word for it. She surged upright so suddenly with such rage and such wildness in her eyes that Ino scuttled back a step or two and Kakashi flinched. "WHY the HELL did you LEAVE HER THERE?!"

"Um," he began weakly. "I was worried about her ability to travel, and she seems safer where she is for the time being. I have reasons to believe that her leaving at this time would create unnecessary complications for both her mission and her… her health."

Tsunade's right hand groped the desk, and for a moment he was extremely concerned that she was searching for a sharp object with which to stick in his face. Instead, she snatched up a splayed folder of bound papers. "Her assignment is to gather information about the syndicate from a suspected contact of the organisation," she read off. "Are you telling me that this is real? There really is something there?"

"She says there have been no leads about the Syndicate," he said, lying smoothly and with earnest. His life depended on it after all. "I personally do not believe this mission will bear fruit, however, there are some moderately dangerous factions within the estate that would be cause for alarm."

"All the more reason for her to get out of there," Tsunade snarled.

"And as I said, Hokage-sama, I don't that would be wise considering her condition. She's not fit, she wasn't fit when she left, and if I can speak freely?"

"As if I could stop you," she grumbled.

"I seriously question your decision to send her on this mission at all." He said it with utmost politeness but there was still a bite to the edge of his words that let her know his true feelings on the matter. In reality he was pretty damn angry that Sakura had been put in this situation. He knew he'd forever regret the day Tsunade ever gave her this particularly assignment.

The woman in question looked at him dismissively. "It had to be someone. If not her, it would have been Ino."

Kakashi glanced sideways at the young woman beside him who was too busy chewing a thumbnail to pay attention. Had she been in Sakura's place, what would be the situation now? Would he have already been exposed, or would he also be confining her to the Zuru estate where she could do no harm? He had to admit he didn't have much sentimentality over the girl, but he could no more dispose of Asuma's student than he could his own. And he knew this weakness was going to ruin him.

"And what is she going to do with it?" Tsunade asked, sitting down to link her fingers tightly before her.

"I… I don't know," he said truthfully, feeling a prickle of anxiety crawl down his back.

Tsunade's lower jaw jutted to the side and her eyes flashed dangerously on him. "And the father?"

"Yes," Kakashi murmured. "Him."

"Do you know him?"

"I know _of _him."

"And what kind of man is he?"

"He… dresses smartly," he began haltingly. "Um… and… he's pretty tall. Moderately attractive. In personality he's someone quiet, but you'll generally find he's loutish, stupid, deceitful and did nothing to deserve her."

Tsunade nodded. "I see," she said, falling into a thoughtful silence.

Kakashi watched her, before deciding it was good a moment as any to propose his idea. "If you don't mind, Hokage-sama. I wish to go back to the estate."

She glanced up sharply. "You? I need you _here_. I can't pass on leadership of this village to you if you're not here, can I?"

He sighed. "In that case, I decline the offer to be Hokage. Or at least I'd like to put it off for a while. I think you'd agree that there are more important things going on right now."

Her eyebrow rose in a moment of total surprise. "You think Sakura is more important than the war?" she asked.

He paused, equally surprised at the way she'd put it. "Yes," he said simply. "I do."

Tsunade shook her head. "I'd rather send Ino. She'd fit in better at that place."

"You'd be surprised how well I blend in there," Kakashi said bleakly.

"Well, I have to say I'm surprised. For you to take such a personal interest in this… it must mean a lot to you."

She had no idea. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"And I'm sure if I didn't give you permission you'd just go anyway, as you've already aptly demonstrated," she said dryly. "Come see me again tomorrow, and I'll try to convince the elders into letting you take over Sakura's mission."

He bowed with no small amount of relief. "Thank you."

But she didn't look happy as she nodded at them both. "You're both dismissed, and remember that none of this conversation leaves this room. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," he chorused with Ino.

"And Kakashi?"

Kakashi turned back as Ino all but fled the room. "Yes?"

"When you go back, you're to find the man who did this to Sakura," she told him steadily. "And you are to kill him."

He swallowed hard. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

* * *

Next Chapter: _Kakashi's Gift_


	20. Kakashi's Gift

A/N: Apologies for the delay. I've been separated from my files for a while, but I hear effeffdotnet was broken anyway, so, at least I timed it right. :D

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Nineteen: Kakashi's Gift

* * *

_And I will never see the sky the same way _

_And I will learn to say good-bye to yesterday_

_And I will never cease to fly if held down_

* * *

"You know, I have my own ANBU division."

"Really?" The blonde woman fidgeted on her stool, looking around at everything but Tenzou.

"Yeah. I lead them into missions… battle… you name it. We save lives, and I mean, I've saved _their_ lives on more than one occasion." Tenzou took a swig of his lager. "I guess it helps when you're related to the first Hokage."

That got the woman's interest. "You're related to the Shodai?"

Tenzou paused guiltily. "In a sense. You see when I was a baby I was kidnapped by this crazy reptilian guy who injected whole boxes of newborns with all kinds of stuff. What he did was… he took some cells from the Shodai – I think he had to dig the guy up to do it – and he injected them into me. Actually, he injected them into loads of kids, but I was the only one that survived, and so here I am."

"Oh, good god." The woman looked downright green. Tenzou insisted to himself that this was just the lighting in the bar.

"If I were to make an educated guess, I'd say I was roughly… 19% Shodai. Yeah."

The woman's lips twisted to the side, her eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling.

"So… can I buy you a drink?" he asked her.

"Yes, why don't you go do that," she said, sounding relieved.

Encouraged, he asked. "What would you like?"

"Anything. I don't care."

With a spring in his step he walked to the bar and placed his order; a lager refill for himself and a Peach Tini for the lady. Once he had both drinks in his hands he turned back expectantly towards the table where he'd left his prospective date.

She was gone. In her place sat Kakashi.

Tenzou went over, confused and a little dismayed. "Where'd the blonde go?"

"What blonde?" Kakashi looked at the Peach Tini. "Is that for me? You shouldn't have."

As Kakashi tugged down his mask and sipped the pink drink delicately, Tenzou threw himself onto the opposite stool, looking about hopelessly for the lost siren. "You must have scared her off. I was doing a good job wooing her."

"Is that what you call it?" Kakashi remarked. "It looked more like the flailing of a horny slug."

"Slugs don't flail," Tenzou pointed out sulkily. "You need to stop using metaphors that don't make sense."

"And you need to stop using the freakish arrangement of your nucleobases as a pick up line."

Both fell into a companionably malicious silence, reflecting on their respective love lives. Tenzou's was very much dead. His only consoling thought that the only man in Konoha who got less action than him was his sempai, but this might have been because he sat drinking lady drinks with other suspiciously single men more often than not.

Then Kakashi took a deep breath and gazed distantly at a picture on the wall of the bar. "Sakura's pregnant."

Tenzou's lager paused on its way to his lips. A joke. It had to be a joke. He watched Kakashi's blank, impassive face, looking for some small telltale crack in his façade that would give away the fact he was pulling Tenzou's leg.

Nothing.

"I don't believe you," he said with cautious certainty.

"I'm not lying," Kakashi murmured, shaking his head. "She's pregnant. And fat."

Tenzou stared at him in wide-eyed horror. "Is it… is it yours?"

"Yes. It seems that way." The other man nodded faintly.

"Oh, god…" Tenzou gasped, his head falling his hands. "Oh, _god!"_

Kakashi calmly sipped his Peach Tini.

"_Why_ do you tell me these things?!" Tenzou hissed, enunciating each word. "I don't want to know this! Stop trying to share your terrible burdens with me! And why does it seem like _I'm_ more upset at how stupid you've been than _you_ are?! Look at your face!"

Kakashi's vacant expression didn't waver.

Shaking his head, Tenzou groaned. "There's no way you can be a father. If there ever existed a man who no sane society should ever let become a father, it's you. In all my years, I don't think I've _ever_ seen you be nice to a child."

"I hate children," he agreed. "But I _have_ been nice sometimes."

"When Kurenai's kid was born, you said she looked like a frog."

"Well, it did."

"And you still call her 'it'!" Tenzou pointed out. "This has to be a dream… there's no way any real woman would have your children. No way. None."

Kakashi drained the last of his Tini and set the cocktail glass down on the table where he began drawing his finger around the base in a restless manner. "I have to admit, Tenzou," he said, "I don't know what to do."

"Fathers aren't meant to do much, are they? Apart from running to the shop in the middle of the night to buy donuts, I mean."

"Sakura and I don't really have that kind of relationship," Kakashi said charily.

"Haven't you two made up yet?"

"Not really. She's found many more objectionable things about my character since then." Kakashi dabbed his fingertips in little puddles on the table. "She hates me, in fact."

"Yeah, I'd probably hate you too if you knocked me up."

Kakashi sighed and looked unhappily at his hands. "Actually… I'm pretty terrified."

"Of course you're terrified. Sakura's bad enough when she isn't pregnant, I don't want to imagine what she's like when she gets hormone rage."

"She already hit me with a mop."

"You probably deserved worse."

"You're probably right." He pulled a face and pushed his empty glass towards Tenzou. "Buy me another drink."

"Why me?"

"Because I'm the one who's having a baby. Buy me a goddamn drink."

Tenzou obeyed, and for the rest of the evening they remained huddled in the corner saying very little but drinking an awful lot. It seemed to him that something wasn't quite right about the situation. Normally when people became parents, there would be a lot of celebrating and cheering and less slouching over stained tables looking like a victim of some terrible war syndrome. "I don't get why you're here with me though," Tenzou said at length, round about the time he was finding it difficult to see past the end of his nose. "Where's Sakura?"

"She's still on the mission."

"When's she coming back?"

Kakashi's forehead hit the table with a bang, and there it stayed. "I don't know. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. I'm in way over my head, I can't say anymore…"

"What?" Tenzou didn't understand.

"If she comes back, I'm screwed… but it's not like she can't _not_ come back. How many negatives was that? I'm not sure I said that right. What I mean is, I can't keep her shut away for ever just so no one finds out… but things are happening, Tenzou. Things are finally moving and she's gone and put her foot right in it." He banged his forehead against the table again, shaking the glasses. "She has the power to destroy me ten times over, and I'm weak enough to let her…"

Still not at all sure what Kakashi was talking about, Tenzou hazarded a guess. "Um… do you mean, people are going to be angry when they find out? I can't see Naruto taking this well."

Kakashi sat up, looking even greyer than before. "I hadn't thought of that."

"How many people know?"

"A couple of people know she's pregnant, but it's hush-hush. So far, you're the only one who knows I'm the father. I might have told Tsunade, but then she'd order me to kill myself."

"Harsh."

"I don't want to kill myself," he agreed.

"Maybe this is one of those situations where… you have to keep it private, you know? Maybe it's best if no one finds out you're the father. They'd only try to kill you."

"I know that, but it kinda depends on Sakura, doesn't it?" Kakashi pointed out. "Right now, I don't think she wants to acknowledge I'm the father…"

Tenzou shrugged. "You kinda have to earn that," he said. "Girls won't consider you a father just because you shot your DNA at them. Doubly so if you weren't even that good at it."

"No one's perfect first time!" Kakashi protested.

"I'm using that excuse in future too." Tenzou sighed. "You habitually shirk your responsibilities and shy away from attachments to other human beings. Maybe being a father will do you some good? I mean, if you can't love your own child, what _can_ you love? I doubt even you're that heartless."

"Of course I am."

Tenzou shot him an annoyed look, but he noticed that Kakashi was watching the other side of the room rather intently. "Are you even listening to me?"

"No," Kakashi suddenly turned back to him. "Give me a flower."

"What?" Tenzou stared at him. "No."

"Yes. A red one. _Now."_

"But why?" Even as he said this he was holding out his hand and a small red pansy was sprouting from his index finger.

The moment it was unfurled and blossoming, Kakashi snapped it off by the stem. "Don't be nosy, Tenzou," he said as he got up.

"Sempai, where are you going?" Tenzou asked in mounting concern. "Are you – are you going to chat up a woman? After all you just told me?"

"I'll be back in the minute."

Kakashi left his flabbergasted kohai at the table and slipped between the crowds of milling drinkers, following one particular figure as she made her way towards the game room. All he could see of her was her flowing black hair. She had a name, but everyone called her Sable on both sides of the war due to her uncanny resemblance to a small mammal of similar colouring… a small mammal of vicious rodent-like temperament.

And the other reason no one knew her real name was because it was the same as his.

She passed through the game room and into a corridor leading to the establishment's restrooms. It was empty, so Kakashi seized the opportunity to rapidly close in and catch her by the arm before she could reach the door of the lady's room.

"Oi!" she hissed sharply, breaking away from him. "Who said you could touch me? You shouldn't even be talking to me."

She looked around warily for any prying eyes, but down this corridor they were just out of sight of the rest of the bar. "I was told to give you this," Kakashi said, presenting the pansy to her. "He said you'd know what it meant."

She stared at the flower for a moment before taking it solemnly. "I understand," she said.

"And when do I get _my _present?" he asked nicely.

Sable regarded him sullenly. "Tomorrow." Then she smiled. "I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"What is it?" he asked, not sure he even wanted to know.

"Can't spoil the surprise now, can I? Crow-boy wouldn't like that."

"I won't tell him you called him that."

"What do I care?" she shrugged. "Now get out of here before someone sees us. I have to go shake some dew off the lily."

"That sounds delightful," he said as she turned from him and pushed her way through the ladies' room door. Kakashi backed away and with one last look around to make sure no one was peering at him from around any corners, he took off back to the front bar where he'd left Tenzou.

The man in question had all but gone to sleep with his cheek perched on his fist and his eyelids sliding down repeatedly. Kakashi tweaked his nose to rouse him. "You still with us?" he asked.

"No flower… no lady…" Tenzou yawned widely. "Your chat up techniques need work, sempai?"

"I have no intention of going home alone, Tenzou," he replied, and levered his arm under Tenzou's. "Come on. Let's go."

"I'm not going home with you," Tenzou protested. "I might wake up angry and pregnant."

Kakashi sighed as he dragged the other man out into the cool night. "I'm beginning to regret I ever told you."

"Good. You always tell me too much."

"Don't worry," he muttered. "I still have plenty of terrible secrets you'll never have to hear."

* * *

"Tea, sirs?"

The two men leaning against the tree turned to look at the pink-haired girl staring stolidly back at them with a steaming canteen in her hand. Patrolling the perimeter of the estate was thirsty work, she figured, even members of the Hatake clan would be in want of a good brew after spending the whole morning on their feet.

But the two dark haired men were not interested. "We can't accept drinks."

"The housekeeper told me to bring you this," she lied. "She thinks you look peaked."

"I _said_ we can't accept drinks," the same man told her, speaking slowly as if to a dumb child.

Sakura remained unperturbed. "Do you not like our tea?" she asked.

"We're not allowed to drink while we work," he said.

"It's not poisoned," Sakura reassured him, which was essentially the truth. The tea she offered them today really was just tea… it would be _tomorrow's_ tea that would be poisoned. Providing these two proved themselves willing to accept unsolicited drinks from suspicious servants, she would be able to come back the next day with a strong dose of Lady Zuru's sleeping draft. "Would you like some beer instead?"

"Run off back to the house, little one."

Sakura turned with a scowl and marched back the way she'd come. _Shit,_ she thought to herself as she tipped the tea down a storm drain and stomped back to her duties before anyone realised she was absent. So much for that plan. Her method of drugging the men who had taken up vigilance around the edge of the estate since the day she'd killed Hatake Matsuke was a no-go, and it had only been the first step in her plan anyway. They were, however, her main obstacle in escaping this place. Even if she lost the dogs shadowing her every move and made up a good excuse so that no one would notice she was missing for a day or so, she would not make it past the Hatake sentries without first subduing them.

Unfortunately, they were as irritatingly virtuous as Kakashi when it came to business. No unsolicited drinks. No breaks while on duty. No letting your guard down for a pretty face. She might be able to drug them in the morning as they took their breakfast with everyone else, but that was hugely risky, and the designated sentries seemed to change every day on too short a notice for her to plan ahead.

There could be other avenues of getting word out that didn't involve leaving, but it would be tricky. With so many elite ninja crawling around, she would have to be careful. She absolutely could not afford to be caught doing _anything_ suspicious. She was pushing her luck merely offering tea to sentries.

Upstairs, she raced through her late morning chores, alone and in silence until she heard the rain begin to patter against the window. Good. Hopefully those nitpicky sentries would get deservedly rained on. Sakura straightened with a weary sigh and a wince. Her back hurt. It wasn't something she was particularly used to, but these days she found that the longer she stayed on her feet, the more a dull, inescapable pain began to throb in her lower spine. And since Yui's leniency was nowhere in sight, Sakura had to put up with it. If she had chakra, she might be ease her stretched muscles, but then again the pain probably served as an apt reminder that she needed to rest.

"Just one more pile…" she said encouragingly to herself, and once again picked up her basket of linen to proceed to the next guest room. At least she didn't have to make the beds herself. She just set the linen on the quilt for the next maid to deal with and gladly moved on with a lighter load. Her lunch break was coming up, and for once she might be on time.

For the last three days, Yui had set her tasks that had a tendency to run longer than was scheduled, leading Sakura to be late for meals – something that was particularly unpleasant since the food she _really _craved was usually gone by the time she'd arrived, leaving her with nothing but meagre leftovers. Fortunately she still had a key to the pantry and whenever no one was looking she raided it with abandon.

Sakura could cope with the hunger. In a way she'd never enjoyed food as much as she did now. The back pain on the other hand…

With the last load of linen dropped off, Sakura tucked her empty basket beneath her arm and left the guest room. She'd drop it off in one of the laundry rooms and then head over to the servant's dining hall to get first pickings. Hopefully today they would be serving noodles. She really wanted noodles. Salty, salty noodles.

Sakura hummed to herself softly as she passed through the quiet corridors. But she wasn't just happy about the prospect of good food, as she had also begun to mentally make a checklist of all possible methods of making contact with Konoha. Several were out of the way and risky, but having several back-up plans gave her some hope.

She vaguely noticed a man approaching in the opposite direction, but for a moment her mind failed to recognise him; her mind was too focused on figuring whether or not she could make a crude radio all by herself with materials around the estate. The only other people she normally met down this corridor near the guest wing were servants or Hatake clan members. If it was the latter, she would step aside and bow politely, and if it was the former she'd smile and nod but not stop.

When she finally lifted her attention to his face, she felt her insides clench almost dramatically.

Toshio was the _last _person she wanted to run into!

Perhaps if she just kept her head down and kept walking he wouldn't notice her? She'd managed to avoid him so far since that time in the library, partly due to Yui's meticulous efforts to keep Sakura away from him and the family. But now they were walking towards each other down a sheltered, empty corridor, and his gaze swept over her once… and then swung back on her as the vague, indifferent expression on his face sharpened. He recognised her. One quick darting glance down the front of her body let her know that he knew _exactly_ who she was.

_Shit,_ she thought, but remained determined to keep walking.

But he was one of the family, and she had to stop and give a respectful bow whether she liked it or not… and when she noticed him beginning to slow as well, she knew she was doomed.

"Finally you appear. You seem to be the ghost everyone else has seen but me," he remarked dryly, with a horrible, lazy smirk on his lips. Sakura stood awkwardly, saying nothing in the hopes that he would lose interest and let her on her way.

"Have you been hiding from me?" he asked her.

Damn, a direct question. She had to respond, and after a beleaguered pause, she replied, "No, Toshio-sama. I have been hard at work."

"You've gotten fat."

Sakura flushed an immediate pink. He probably thought it was embarrassment, but in reality it was brutal anger. _Why don't you just die, die, die, die, die…_

"But you're still kinda cute," he continued, looking down his nose at her. It wasn't at all aristocratic like his father's or his mother's. He was a true Hatake, roughly sewn together from odd parts and inbred to hell and back no doubt. "How does it feel to be carrying the heir of this entire estate?"

Sakura shrugged wordlessly. She'd only spit at him if she opened her mouth now.

"And how does it feel knowing that my parents will have you killed should you give birth to our son?"

Recoiling slightly, Sakura took a step back. "Please, Toshio-sama, I really should get back to my duties or I'll be in trouble," she whispered.

"I can protect you, you know," he said.

She looked at him sharply. "I'm sorry…?"

"You don't have to live in fear. Under my protection no harm would ever come to you. Don't you want that?"

She'd rather take her chances.

Toshio stepped forward to place his hands on her shoulder. She shuddered. "All you have to do," he said, "is come share my bed. Be mine and you and the child will be safe."

He didn't believe it for a second, and neither did she. He could no more stop his parents from sending assassins after her than he could control his own dick, and she knew all he wanted was an easy bedfellow. He expected her to be vulnerable and desperate to cling to safety, something he could exploit in order to gain perhaps the only other girl from Yui who might be willing.

But Sakura would sooner die than share his bed. "Thank you," she said with all due reverence, "but I'm not worried. I feel no need for protection-"

She tried to step out of his grip, but his fingers automatically tightened. "Did you think that was a request?" he said in a light tone that belied the threat in his words. "Don't forget your place, maid. You are under _my _employment, you do as _I _say."

This could very easily go bad. With no chakra, she couldn't trap him in a genjutsu again and her physical strength would be no match for his. She was still faster and could throw him over her shoulder and rearrange his face if need be, but there was no way she could do that without revealing herself to be a kunoichi. If Toshio tried anything, she would be forced to comply if she wanted to live.

Or she would have to kill him outright to keep him quiet.

"Please," she said, trying to step back again. This wouldn't end well for either of them if he persisted.

His fingers furled in the fabric of her yukata, tugging her towards the wall in a violent jerk. "Do you feel like changing your mind?" he asked. "You don't have to make this difficult on yourself."

A low growling started at their feet. Toshio looked down in surprise the same moment as Sakura and both stared in mild surprise at the small, irritable dog standing there.

"What the hell?" Toshio muttered, his face drawing in an ugly scowl as he glared at Pakkun. "Why's there a damn dog roaming about the halls? Get away!" He aimed a kick at the small pug, but Pakkun easily dodged it to suddenly begin barking in earnest at the man. They were surprisingly impressive barks for his small frame, especially when he drooled and snapped at Toshio's heels.

One of the hand gripping Sakura's yukata fell away, but the other remained, dragging her back with him as Toshio tried to avoid the dog.

"Call him off!" Toshio snapped at her.

"He's not mine!" she protested, wishing he would stop dragging her clothes like that.

It was getting awfully loud and excitable in that previously quiet corridor, and the noise Pakkun with kicking up was doing its intended job of attracting attention. Further down the hall, two girls emerged from one of the guestrooms.

"What is that noise, Aki?"

"Yui, look…"

Yui looked, and the moment she saw Toshio, holding Sakura against the wall with his hand twisted into her yukata, a storm rolled over her face to put the one outside to shame. No one seemed to notice that the barking had stopped, because Yui was suddenly doing a lot of barking of her own.

"Sakura –don't you dare inconvenience Toshio-sama! Get back to your duties right this second!" she snarled.

For once Sakura was all too glad of Yui's pathological hatred of her. "Yes, Yui," she said meekly, and pulled herself from Toshio's lax fingers. He wasn't going to stop her now; not in front of witnesses.

"I'm sorry if she's bothered you at all, Toshio-sama," Yui grovelled to the young lord. "I'll see that she's punished."

"Don't bother," he snapped, and turned on his heel to walk away.

If Yui really was a cat, every hair on her body would have stood on end at the moment he snubbed her. She'd annoyed the man she loved by getting in the way of his interest in another woman. There was only one way she would deal with this…

Turning an acid glare on Sakura, her catty eyes narrowed even more. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Sure." Sakura strode right past her, tugging and straightening her yukata until it was no longer rumpled from Toshio's grip. Yui followed her, closely dogged by a concerned Aki.

"You little whore, you're not being paid to seduce your employers," Yui said viciously as they stomped down a set of stairs leading to the undercroft. "I'll have you cleaning toilets all week for this."

Sakura turned around, forcing Yui to a dead stop. The other girl was taller, but Sakura was not intimidated in the slightest. "No, Yui. I won't be cleaning toilets. Not for you, not for anyone. Suck on it."

Yui's hand drew back sharply and cracked across her face. "Don't you dare talk to me like that, you little slut!"

Sakura held her cheek, her mouth gaping in shock. "You hit me!"

"Suck on it!" was Yui's rather fitting retort.

So Sakura slapped her back across the mouth, just hard enough to watch one of the pretty, painted lips split. "And don't you lay a finger on me!" Sakura raged back. "I'll end you!"

Passing servants were beginning to slow around them to watch, agog at the spectacle of two maids in the beginning of a catfight.

Aki tried to intervene, putting a hand out between them. "Sakura," she said warningly.

"Don't you stick up for her!" Sakura hissed at her. "Grow a damn backbone, Aki! You know what Toshio's like – I've done nothing wrong here!"

Tears stood out in Yui's eyes. "You bitch! Everything was fine until you arrived and began whoring around!" She slapped at Sakura again, her nails scoring hard lines down her cheek.

"Stop hitting me!" Sakura smacked her in the eye.

"You're hitting me!"

"Yes, but _I'm_ pregnant."

This was the last thing Yui needed reminding of again. With a yowl she lunged for Sakura, who was ready to meet her kick for kick and punch for punch, but Aki and the other servants clearly didn't think this was a good idea. Two strong arms tugged Sakura backwards and several more dragged Yui away as several bodies stepped between them.

"Enough, ladies!" someone cautioned. "Don't be getting us into trouble."

Sakura ignored the voice of reason. "You know what, Yui? You can have him! I don't want him – _no one wants him_! You're both so sick and twisted that you deserve one another, and if I never had to see him again, I would be _glad_! He's a rotten stinking corpse and you're welcome to that fetid excuse for a human being!"

Several of the servants tried to shush Sakura, even going so far as to clap hands over her mouth.

"You can't say things like that," Aki pleaded. "You'll get fired."

"I'm just saying what everyone's thinking and what _she_ needs to hear!" Sakura shouted. "Do you hear Yui? Keep blaming other people for your lover's actions all you like! See if that makes him love you any better!"

"I wish you would die!" Yui screamed, tears sliding down her face. "Someone like you doesn't deserve to draw breath let alone be the one to bear his child! They'll murder you one of these nights, and I'll do nothing but laugh and spit on your body! You filthy slut – you're asking for it!"

For a moment everyone in the corridor was silent, even Sakura. No one expected such vitriol… and it was clear that she meant every word of it.

"What the hell's going on?" The gathered crowd drew back and parted as a tall, finely dressed retainer appeared down the same staircase Sakura had just come down with Yui and Aki. "I could hear the shouting from two floors up!"

As personal retainer for Lord Zuru, this was the most senior member of the household staff. No one dared breathe a word, for in a way he was virtually on par with the family as far as hierarchy was concerned. If he'd heard Sakura's unflattering comments about Toshio, she would be in even bigger trouble than she already was. If he'd heard Yui's blatant promise of death to Sakura, she would be called out too.

He looked between the two angry but subdued maids and clicked his tongue in distaste. "This is not a fitting way for young ladies to behave," he remarked. "Who started this?"

Eyes unconsciously swivelled to Yui. Even though no one dared to point fingers, it was pretty obvious what had happened and whose fault it was. The girl in question quivered with anger and barely restrained sobs, which she tried doubly hard to control as Lord Zuru's retainer turned to her. "Is this true, Yui-chan?"

"No, sir!" she croaked angrily.

He released a heavy sigh and shook his head. "This is disappointing. With your behaviour, I'm just not convinced you were ready for the post of Lady Zuru's personal retainer," he said deeply. "Aki has more experience and I see she's the only one here not being restrained by at least three men, so I'd like you to respectfully defer to her from now on."

Yui went white lipped in outrage. Aki herself looked like she desperately wanted to refuse – not because she didn't want the position of personal retainer, but because Yui could and would hate her almost as much as Sakura.

"Is that clear?" the head of staff prompted.

"Yes, sir," Aki chorused weakly.

"Yes," Yui said, only with more curtness.

He turned to Sakura. "And you," he said warningly, "better remember your place in future. If I hear you insulting the young lord again, I will take you to him for personal disciplining."

Sakura gulped.

"Even if he is a little maggot," he added.

A spatter of nervous laughter rippled around the underground corridor, and Sakura relaxed a little. She didn't dare look at Yui and see how such an open insult towards her godly Toshio had landed. She was just glad that the momentarily loss of control of her emotions hadn't landed her in any serious trouble.

"Now return to your stations and if I hear another word about this, you'll all be _very,_ very sorry."

People began to drift away and the men holding Yui back gradually let her go. Sakura wasn't sure this was wise as it still looked as if Yui was itching to gouge her nails through Sakura's eyes. Then a wide arm swept around Sakura and began ushering her away. "Come on, sweetheart," said a kindly scullery maid who Sakura had never spoken to before. "Leave that girl to stew in her own mess. It's lunch time, don't you think?"

Sakura gratefully allowed herself to be herded along to the dining hall. By then she really needed the food and wolfed down whole bowls of noodles until she came in real danger of popping. Her hands still shook slightly, but she knew this was not because of her clash with Yui (Sakura clashed with far too many people far too regularly to get truly shaken up by one cat-eyed bitch who couldn't bruise a tomato if she hit it with a hammer). In truth, it was Toshio that got to her.

What would have happened if Pakkun hadn't been there to sound the alarm? What if Yui and Aki hadn't been working nearby? She would have been forced to choose between the nuisance all undercover ninja faced - accepting unwanted, even violent sexual advances, and overpowering Toshio with physical speed and strength alone - something that wouldn't be enough to protect her in this place unless she killed him the way she'd killed Hatake Matsuke. The interests of her own personal safety conflicted with her desire to preserve her body's sovereignty, and she honestly didn't know which she would have chosen had AKi and Yui not come upon them when they did. At least she was safe here, sitting at a table with dozens of other servants, not having to make that horrible decision. But what about when she was alone? When would be the next time he caught her out? What if he _sought_ her out like before?

Sakura's hand landed on a sharp, thin tourne knife lying between two cups a short distance away. She sighed. It would have to do for now.

As she stood, she surreptitiously passed her hand over the blade. When she dropped the same hand back to her side, the knife was gone.

It made her feel marginally more secure to have something sharp up her sleeve. If anyone found it and asked any questions, she could innocently and truthfully claim it was for copping carrots. If anyone tried to assassinate her or pull at her clothes, she could cheerfully stick it in their face and then later claim it was still for chopping carrots once she washed the blood off.

Passing along the quieter servant corridors, Sakura headed back to the dormitory where she hoped to have a rest before she was scheduled to go pick fresh flowers for the guest rooms with Kaoru. She wasn't all that surprised when she heard a now familiar click of nails of floorboards behind her as Pakkun trotted to catch up.

"Do I get a thank you?" he asked as he drew up alongside her.

"For behaving like an animal?" She shrugged. "Congratulations, I guess."

"Try to avoid getting into trouble," he told her drolly. "Clearly there's only so much I can do in a squeeze. You have Kakashi's scroll, don't you?"

"In my room."

"Carry it with you at all times. You'll never know when you need it."

"Look, I have this knife now-"

"Don't be so proud and vain," he rebuked her. "You may not want Kakashi's help, but he left you that scroll to protect you and you'd be a fool to reject that considering your condition."

Sakura blushed angrily. "I don't need help!" she snapped. She didn't like being reprimanded by a dog, and nor did she like facing the fact that she'd promised herself not to take unnecessary risks now that she was pregnant… and that involved accepting all the help she could get, even if it was Kakashi's.

"Sakura-"

"Don't nag me," she ground out. "Go away before someone sees you."

The small pug sighed and fell back until she could no longer hear his claws tapping on the floor. _What a pain_, she thought to herself, because as long as the dog was shadowing her, escape from this place was going to be difficult. True, Pakkun himself wouldn't be much of a force to reckon with if he tried to stop her leaving, but he could call up other members of his pack if he needed too. If he called Bull, who was roughly around the same size as his namesake, she'd have to concede defeat.

Kakashi certainly hadn't given her much leeway when he'd left, but she had plans of her own to work on…

The door of her familiar bedroom came into sight and she hurried towards it gratefully, longing for the cool, softness of her futon. There was nothing better than an afternoon snooze after lunch while listening to the rain outside. But as she neared the door, strange hushed voices within made her instinctively slow and mask her footsteps. People only spoke like that when they were bitching about someone else.

"… she never should have come here." That was definitely Yui. Her voice was hoarse and uneven, as if she'd been crying ever since Sakura had left her in the undercroft.

"It's not her fault, Yui," Aki said softly. "You have to admit, Toshio-sama is not the kind of person who'd take 'no' for an answer-"

"That's not true – and don't you talk about him like that!" Yui barked at her. "She provoked him! He can be weak to a pretty face, but it's _them_ who keep throwing themselves at him for his money and his power. If she wasn't pretty, he would never have fallen for her tricks. I'll ugly her in her sleep tonight and see if he still wants her tomorrow."

Sakura's eyes widened slightly. Perhaps tonight she'd sleep in one of the overflow guestrooms…

Aki sighed. "Don't do anything stupid, Yui. You'll get in trouble."

"I don't care," the other girl sniffed.

As Sakura crept closer, she was able to see through the faint of gap between the two sliding door panels. She could see Yui's back, and Aki seemed to be crouched beside her, applying something that looking like iodine to her split lip.

"I don't mean like the _normal_ trouble," Aki said to her. "That isn't a girl you should be messing with."

"Why not?" Yui demanded petulantly. "She deserves it."

"She's under the protection of the Hatake clan. Even you know better than to provoke that lot."

Sakura's brow furrowed. The Hatake clan certainly wasn't protecting her, but perhaps Aki was spinning a fib in order to make sure Yui backed off.

"I don't believe you," Yui snorted. "I would have heard."

"Well, you're hearing now, aren't you? You know of Hatake Kakashi, right?"

"'Course."

"He told me that if anything happened to Sakura while he was gone… let's just say he won't be happy if you ugly her up."

Yui didn't sound so blusteringly cock-sure anymore. "What do you think he'd do?"

"He's a trained killer. What do _you _think he'd do?"

"But _why_?" Yui hissed. "What the hell does he have to do with anything?"

"He wants her, that's why."

"Don't tell me she seduced him too?"

"Maybe… just… don't be making rash threats against her, ok? She's already had two attempts made on her life, she'd probably take you seriously, and then what would happen to you if she told _him_ that?"

"Ch…! How could anyone _want_ her anyway? She's fat."

Sakura drew back sharply, fists clenched so hard at her sides that her nails bit painfully into her palms. She relished that sting – it kept her in line and stopped her from running in there to knock Yui flat on her face. Better leave now before she gave into the temptation.

But as she walked away, it wasn't Yui's insults that stuck in her mind, it was Aki's mention of Kakashi. Apparently they'd spoken to each other, something Aki had failed to mention, and Kakashi had warned that nothing better happen to her while he was away.

_Idiot!_ she seethed inwardly. Didn't he know how dangerous it was for them to be linked together in this place? If anyone ever found out she was from Konoha, her life would be over.

_He wants her, that's why_.

Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to think about that. It was probably just Aki misinterpreting the reality of their relationship, but somehow the idea didn't anger or alarm her. What if Kakashi wanted her? Would that be so bad?

It was a shame she knew it wasn't true…

* * *

Outside the Hokage's main council room, Hatake Kakashi paced like a caged panther - a caged panther who had a shocking hangover, but that was only to be expected when you drowned your sorrows in Peach Tinies and then went home, arm in arm with another man and woke up with said man spooning you.

Unfortunately, Kakashi now had to turn his attention back to more serious matters; first and foremost being that he needed to get clearance to go back to the Zuru estate, and back to Sakura. It was already difficult enough to get sympathetic leave when there _wasn't_ a war on. Even if Tsunade was willing, he now had to convince the council members that letting one of their best fighters take over a small-fry mission in order to look after a pregnant girl was a good idea. Somehow, Kakashi didn't think it would be seen that way. But it was all a matter of courtesy anyway, since whether or not they deigned to grant him leave, he would return there anyway, however it was only with leave that he could ensure no more came after him. Without it, he would have to get inventive...

The heavy oak door creaked open and Shizune's face appeared. "You're on time," she observed astutely as she beckoned him inside. "This way."

It was a busy chamber, with scrolls and books littering the floor and war strategists and analysts gathered around tables to squint intelligently at maps. Down two steps and through an archway lay the main council chamber where Tsunade sat with the elders. Like Shizune, they seemed faintly surprised to see he was on time.

"We were just discussing you," Tsunade said. "Your request to take over this particular mission due to Sakura's… physical complaint… is pretty unorthodox, but I think we've managed to come to an arrangement."

"Then I can go?" Kakashi asked hopefully.

"Not so fast," Koharu said lightly. "If you were anyone else, I'd think you were attempting to wriggle out of higher risk missions out of cowardice."

Kakashi's jaw clenched. "Cowardice has nothing to do with this. Sakura is in need of assistance," he said, before quickly adding, "for her mission."

"We're aware she's pregnant." Homura said shortly. "This is an extremely disappointing turn of events and we lament the loss of one of our most prized kunoichi."

He made it sound like she'd died.

"We recognise her need for assistance, however, what we would like to know is why we should be sending a jonin to baby-sit a pregnant medic?" Koharu asked him in her elderly, warbling voice.

"Because… she asked for me," he said lamely.

"Indeed?" she raised a grey eyebrow at him. "Why is that? You wouldn't happen to be the father, would you?"

Kakashi opened his mouth but no sound emerged. Tsunade quickly took up the reigns. "Sakura fell pregnant while on this mission," she explained to the elders. "Kakashi is a close friend of hers and is obviously eager to offer his assistance."

Saved. But the elders had naturally suspicious faces and the way they looked at him now made him wonder if they had figured out the truth. "I've been to the estate where Sakura is undercover," he continued on regardless. "I've already established a role for myself there, and should anyone else be sent back in my place, it may raise suspicions. Now that they know me, it's only sensible for me to be the one to go back."

"And would you bring her back?" Koharu warbled.

He shook his head. "I would try, but Sakura is not able to travel in her current condition." He hoped.

"Does she require a medic?" Tsunade asked him sharply.

"There's already a very able doctor living at the estate. He's no medic-nin, but he's a general practitioner. He's good enough."

The elders looked at one another in consternation and then at Tsunade before returning their gaze to Kakashi. They probably had some psychic connection. It was the only explanation how they could possibly meet a mutual agreement without needing to speak. "The most we can grant you is three months," Homura told him.

Three months. It wouldn't be enough to see the pregnancy all the way to its last term, but a lot could happen in that space of time. A lot could change. To ask for any more would be to push his luck, so he would have to make do with what he'd been given and think himself lucky for receiving any leave whatsoever. "Thank you, elders," he said, dipping into a bow.

"This way," Tsunade said, tapping his elbow. "We have papers to sign."

He followed the Hokage back out of the council chamber and along the corridor towards her office. As they walked, she talked almost non-stop. "You have to keep an eye on her. Make sure she stays warm and rested and well-fed."

"She's pregnant, Hokage-sama, not ill," Kakashi reminded.

"And if you don't take proper care of her, I'll have your head!" she snapped. "Do you understand that, Kakashi? I'm entrusting my apprentice to your woefully inept care when I should be sending someone competent and understanding – like Shizune. But for some reason she's asked for you and as much as I'm loathe to admit it, if that is what she wishes, so be it. Don't think I don't know why she's asked for you. I'm not blind."

"I don't know what you mean," he said blankly. He really didn't.

"It's obvious she's pretty taken with you, and I doubt your feelings toward her are that minor if you're willing to go this far for her. I may not like it, but I understand her wishes in this situation."

Except it wasn't what Sakura wished for at all. She was his prisoner for all intents and purposes, and not for the first time he wondered if he was what some people would call a 'villain'. He certainly felt like one. Only villains held young ladies against their will. All he lacked was a dungeon and an evil dragon guarding her, though he supposed Pakkun was close enough.

In her office, Tsunade immediately began hunting around her shelves, flipping through folder after folder in her search. "S…S…S… sympathetic leave… maybe it's under L…?"

Kakashi waited patiently by her desk. All he needed to do was sign the papers and he would be free to leave. He'd set off straight away once he'd gathered his belongings, and with any luck he would be back at the estate before the week was out. If Pakkun was at all reliable and Sakura didn't have a death wish, she would still be there.

Tsunade was still hunting through her files when a polite fist rapped against the door. "Hokage-sama," said a sweet voice, "the border reports you ordered are here."

He knew that voice. Something unpleasant prickled the back of his neck and the palms of his hands as he turned his head to regard the woman standing in the doorway.

"Ah, just put them on the desk, Sable," Tsunade said blithely without turning around.

Sable sashayed into the room with an armful of blue folders, giving Kakashi a knowing smile as she passed him. His heart thumped. He could sense trouble when it was brewing and suddenly he knew this was it. This was his gift. His mouth opened to shout a warning, and even though he was already moving, he knew it was too late. She was passing behind Tsunade, the folders were falling away – a glossy, silver blade flashed and then it was buried.

Tsunade didn't scream. She only gasped as a stream of red slid down her back, staining the length of her shirt. Sable drew back, ready to stab again. Only this time Kakashi caught her wrist and in one wrench he threw her violently to the floor. The wrist in his grip snapped, and the grounded kunoichi hissed in pain. But whatever bones he may have broken, she only glared up at him wildly, in unreserved disbelief at what he'd done. "What are you doing?!" she shrieked at him. "She has to die!"

Kakashi pinned her with his whole weight as she struggled viciously despite her injuries. "ANBU!" he roared, looking back over his shoulder at Tsunade. She had slipped quietly onto her knees, her head falling forward but her white fingers still gripped the shelves. "I need a medic!" he shouted again.

Neither were far in a place like this and in seconds he heard the thunder of footsteps as Shizune and two masked elites appeared in the doorway.

"What's going on?" The first thing Shizune noticed was Kakashi pinning Sable to the floor, but the moment her gaze searched out her master, she forgot about them. "_Tsunade_!"

The two ANBU guards moved towards Kakashi, but he shook his head. "Your priority is to get the Hokage to the hospital. I'll take this one down for interrogation myself."

Beneath him, Sable flexed and fought his weight. "… _bastard_!" she choked. "You're dead, Kakashi! You've made a _big_ mistake!"

"Yeah," he panted, looking back over his shoulder at the Hokage slumping in her own puddle of blood, beside a dagger tinged with a sticky yellow tar that could only be poison, "I think I have."

* * *

Next Chapter: An Old Friend Returns


	21. An Old Friend Returns

A/N: If you haven't already heard, one of the great Kakasaku authors, Serenanna, passed away this February. Her fics were among the first I read that pulled me into the fandom, so I probably wouldn't be here if not for her. I only had the pleasure of speaking to her a few times, but she was always without a doubt one of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met and now I wish there was still all the time left in the world to get to know her. I hope you will read her fics, if you haven't already, and remember her and her talented contributions to this fandom and others.

www. fanfiction. net /~ serenanna

It feels like a meagre offering, but I'd like to dedicate this story to her. She was a wonderful person, and a wonderful writer, and she will be missed.

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty: An Old Friend Returns

* * *

_For a long time, I was in love_

_Not only in love, I was obsessed_

_With a friendship that no one else could touch._

_It didn't work out, I'm covered in shells._

* * *

She'd always liked the mews back in Konoha, but that had been cleaner than this place. Sakura was forced to hold the sleeve of her yukata over her delicate nose to protect it from the offensive smells coming up off the floor. Old straw, tiny animal bones, and not just a little excrement, among other things. But if she knew one thing from the bird loft back home, it was that these places were usually quiet, which was why she wasn't quite prepared for the sudden chorus of angry squawking the moment she stepped into the main aviary. With her sleeve still clamped firmly over her face, she turned to give the noisy rows of birds a look of deep consternation.

"What's with all the crows?" she asked the boy who was listlessly feeding a couple of squashed looking mice to a very large hawk.

He looked at her blankly. She remembered his name was something like 'Haru'. "Uh… they belong to the Hatake clan. They seem to do a lot of messaging, but they won't use ours."

"Who'd use crows?" Sakura wondered aloud as the flock of angry black ravens cackled and scolded her. "A whole lot of them together are called something creepy, right? What's the collective noun?"

The boy didn't seem that keen on them either. "A murder," he said flatly. "Is there something you want?"

Sakura held out a folded note to him. "The seamstress wants to place an order for new fabrics," she said.

"Ah… no problem," he took the note and took care to read the contents. Sakura watched him carefully. If he did that with every message he was told to send, there was little chance of slipping something by him unless it was written in impenetrable code. Or else she would just have to try a time when he wasn't here. "Where do you need it sending?"

Sakura twirled a finger through her hair innocently. "Um… do you have any that go to Konoha?" she asked lightly.

"Konoha?" he repeated disbelievingly.

"Yah, Konoha," she said, meeting his gaze unflinchingly.

"Are you… sure that's where you want the order sent?" His eyes narrowed at her. "Fabric orders normally go to Ame."

"I'm sure she said Konoha," Sakura persisted. "Do you have any birds trained to fly there?"

"N-No…"

Damn. "Well, maybe you have some that fly to another fire country town or village that will pass on the message?"

"Why would we have any connections in the fire country?" the boy asked. "We're at war with them."

"Are we?" Sakura's hopes were fading fast. She looked around at the perches of hawks and kites and even some dozing owls. None of them were trained to fly to Konoha… but this was nothing more than what she'd expected. The family had probably never needed to contact Konoha before, and likely never would.

Sakura glanced at the crows. If this lot were the neural pathways of the Syndicate's communication network, a few may have travelled to Konoha to contact Kakashi. Did she dare ask or even try it? They weren't sentient creatures, but there was a gleam of uncanny intelligence in their eyes, and Sakura didn't think it wise to entrust any message to the Hokage with one of the Syndicate's very own birds.

"You're right," she sighed finally. "It was probably Ame. My mistake."

As she watched the boy fit the seamstress's order into a tube around the leg of one hawk, Sakura thought she heard someone yelling outside. That wasn't unusual. People yelled a lot of things around the courtyard to one another, sometimes it was the only way to be heard. But then someone else yelled, and then another person joined in… and it didn't seem to be the casual kind of _"Who's run off with my hammer?!_" yell. More the _"Get on the ground and put your hands up!" _kind.

Something thudded against the outside wall of the mews, ruffling more than a few feathers. Sakura forgot the message and the bird boy and immediately hurried outside to see what the commotion was.

It was a monk.

She recognised his encompassing black and purple robes and the wide-brimmed bamboo kasa covering his head. He was a little odd though; not half because in one hand he was holding a very un-monk-like _sword_, and in the other an unconscious man by the scruff of his neck. There were a few more unconscious bodies littering the courtyard, most of them Zuru guards, but at least one was a Hatake. Sakura noted that with secret glee.

"Drop our man!" shouted one Zuru guard as he and a dozen other men attempted to encircle the monk.

"He attacked me," the monk replied evenly. There was something horribly familiar about that voice. A wave of panic and excitement left Sakura's whole body tingling in shock and acute awareness. Her knees threatened to buckle.

_It couldn't be…_

"You're surrounded! Lay down your weapon!" the same guard bellowed.

But someone else was approaching from the entrance of the main house, at a brisk, confident walk of a man who feared nothing, when perhaps he really should have, Sakura thought. Without breaking his stride, Karasu broke through the circle of guards and confiscated one of their swords as he passed, and in the next second he was swinging at the monk.

The man dropped his hostage and spun to avoid it. Electrical sparks flew as sword met sword, again and again like, and Sakura's heart lodged firmly in her throat. She knew that fighting style, and those deliberate, heavy swings and such minimal footwork it was almost mocking. It was certainly no monk.

The fight was interrupted by a sharp flash of light and a crackle of electricity, and in that same moment one of the swords split and shattered on the cobbles.

Karasu regarded what remained of his broken hilt with blank dismay. "Ah," he said. "I suspected it might be you, but I had to be sure. I hope you're not here to cause trouble or I'll really have to get serious."

"I am only here because we have a common enemy," the monk said, sheathing his weapon in its black and white scabbard. "I have information to sell you."

Karasu waved the other men to stand down. "It better be worth a lot or I might just try to sell you back to Konoha myself for the reward money, Uchiha-san."

The monk drew off his wide hat and bowed. His hair had grown a little since Sakura had cut it, but Sakura knew that face so well he could have been wearing a pink wig for all she cared. She knew Sasuke when she saw him.

He, however, could not see her.

* * *

"I can see fear in that old eye of yours, Kakashi."

Water was dripping down the cold, stone walls, built so thick that no scream could penetrate them. All sorts of terrible things took place within these dank underground chambers far below the mountain, the evidence of which were the numerous dark stains open the floor and the stinking drain in the corner. Sometimes just sitting in these rooms was enough to break someone's spirit. Sable, however, remained bright-eyed and defiant. Her arm may have been broken in three different places and she may have been bound completely to a bolted down iron chair, but she still grinned at him, knowing exactly who had the upper hand now.

Kakashi stood stiffly against the wall with his arms tightly folded and his jaw locked. ANBU guards he hadn't quite been able to shake off had helped escort her here, but they'd departed now to summon Ibiki. He would arrive soon and then the interrogation would begin.

"Some of us suspected, and we all wondered," she continued, her voice echoing around the small room. "You've been fostered by these people for too long. You've grown soft. You're as schizophrenic as that mad daddy of yours. One minute ordering me to kill the Hokage, the next you're jumping in to save her life!"

"I had no idea what the order meant," he ground out. "If I'd known, I would never have given it you."

"Don't you want to be Hokage?" she hissed.

"No. And certainly not like this."

"You should have just let me kill her… because now you're _dead!_" Sable laughed almost joyfully. "What are you going to do, Kakashi?! You've betrayed your own clan! When Karasu hears this, we won't have to suffer the likes of a bastard brat like _you_ anymore! They'll be screaming for your blood and they'll get it in the end. Not everyone enjoys the original heir hanging around, you know. Things like this... this is just the kind of excuse they need to be rid of you for good."

Kakashi glared at her.

"I can see what you're thinking," she snickered softly. "You're thinking… _Karasu doesn't have to find out if I keep her locked in here_. You're so stupid. The moment that scumbag Ibiki arrives, I'm telling him everything. I'm telling him who the syndicate is and why we do this, and I'll delight in telling him exactly who _you_ are! I'm just sad I'll never get to see that old hag's face when she learns her most trusted jonin has been playing for the other team all this time!"

Kakashi rose away from the wall and circled behind her chair to begin pacing. He could no longer keep still.

"So you see, brother, you have no choice," Sable told him airily. "Keep me here, and soon the whole village will know of your betrayal and you'll be sitting right alongside me when they start tapping shunts through our skulls to pry out our secrets. Your only chance is to free me this very second. It would appear to be in both our interests if neither of us mentioned what you did today."

Kakashi stopped to kneel down before her. "You won't tell Karasu that I intervened?"

"I'll just tell him that some stupid asshole with shit for brains got in the way and I barely escaped by the skin of my teeth," she said coyly. "I don't even have to lie, you see? I'll protect you. No one has to know you betrayed the clan."

"Sable…" he murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder. "My betrayal? What about yours?"

Her face hardened.

"The second you get out of here you'll inform Karasu straight away," he said heavily. "I know how you feel about me, and I know you're wetting yourself at the thought alone of selling me out. I could let you go, but I know I'd be handing over my own life. So you see, for my own sake I can't let you leave here."

She snarled at him. "And when Ibiki-"

"When he arrives… perhaps three minutes from now, you will tell him everything, won't you?" Kakashi agreed. "If I let you go down, you'll take me with you. In fact, you're willing to take the whole clan down with you to ensure I meet a sticky end, and I can't allow that. My betrayal of your mission pales in comparison to the betrayal you just admitted to. For the sake of the clan, I can't let you stay here either."

"_Kakashi!_" she hissed in warning, before immediately switching to a more simpering tone. "Brother, think about this."

"You're no sister of mine, Sable," he rebuked evenly, reaching out to pluck at the small locket resting against her clavicle. It was the kind of locket people used to carry around pictures of their parents of their kids, or their beloved partners. Kakashi knew Sable had none of these.

"Don't you dare!" she shrieked, struggling against her bonds as he tore the locket from her throat and opened it in his palm.

"A little predictable, Sable," he said softly, holding up a tiny glass capsule between his fingers. "Better to keep these things in the lining of your clothes."

"Like you?" she spat.

"I don't carry cyanide pills. Suicide is for the weak," he said flatly, as he snapped the capsule in his palm and poured out the poison inside. "Looks like sugar, don't you think? It probably doesn't taste quite as sweet though. You may want to hold your nose."

"You're filth," she rasped at him. "You're filth, your mother was a whore, and your father was the biggest disgrace ever to be born into the clan! You'll rot in hell alone for how you've dragged our great name through the mud!"

"Be quiet now," he said, moving to stand behind her as his palm covered her mouth. Her lips remained firmly shut, refusing to submit to the poison pressed against them, but she wouldn't be able to resist for long. Not when Kakashi pinched her nose shut and her body began to silently thrash. She could suffocate or she could open her mouth; it was her choice now. Her entire frame quiver in his arms.

After a few seconds her mouth tore open with a great gasp. Kakashi pulled his hand away and stepped back to watch her pant eagerly for air, even as her eyes started to roll around madly in her head. "Y… you're nothing but…a…"

She shuddered and twitched as her brain began to shut down. Kakashi watched dispassionately, waiting to feel something as her body went through the death roes he'd seen so many times in his life. He expected something like guilt. A little regret. Perhaps a little heartache.

All he felt was relief.

"I'm sorry," he told her emptily as he reached down to loose her ties.

By the time Ibiki pulled open the heavy lock and walked in, Sable was slumped forward in her chair, the broken locket in her hand. He frowned at Kakashi who was once again standing at the wall. "What happened?" he demanded, coming forward to press his hand against her neck for a pulse, but that had stopped minutes ago.

"She had a pill in her locket. I couldn't stop her," Kakashi said with a shrug.

Ibiki gave him a thunderous glare. "She was a syndicate spy and you let her die?! This was the only lead we had!"

"It was never going to be that easy anyway," Kakashi murmured. "Maybe the autopsy will turn up something?"

"I doubt it," Ibiki said as he stood. "These people are meticulous."

Kakashi pushed away from the wall and walked towards the door. "Then we're back where we started," he said simply.

"Kakashi," Ibiki interrupted, making him pause in the doorway. "Tsunade wants to see you."

"She's ok then?" he asked dimly.

"You ever doubted it?"

Kakashi smiled softly and shook his head. "I'm just relieved."

* * *

"Who is he?" Kaoru pressed closer to the gap in the screens, trying to get a better look at the dining room below. They were one floor up, at the perfect vantage point to look down at the people gathered around the table below, and at one newcomer in particular. Sakura didn't feel entirely comfortable spying from here. This was a room full of ninja… and while their confab around the table wasn't supposed to be in secrecy, they might not appreciate being spied on from the upper galleries. Sakura was sure Karasu had glanced their way at least once.

Yet they probably weren't the only servants peeking through the walls. There was a little excitement buzzing around the house right now.

It was odd how even this far out, the name Uchiha still held deep respect and meaning to many people.

Well… apart from Kaoru, that is.

"What is he, a monk?" the girl in question demanded quietly. "What kind of freaky monk carries a sword anyway?"

"He's not a monk, Kaoru," Aki whispered back. "He's obviously in disguise. He's a wanted criminal, you know."

"So's Karasu, but you don't see him dressing up as a priestess."

"I don't know, maybe he likes to dress up?" Aki guessed. "Everyone says he's a bit mad anyway."

"Yes, but _who_ is he?" Kaoru hissed again.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of the Uchiha," Aki sighed.

"What's the Uchiha?"

"Sakura, you tell her."

Sakura balked. "Why me?"

"You're from the fire country, you probably know more than I do anyway," Aki said.

She probably knew a little too much at that. Sakura swallowed and glanced down at the top of Sasuke's head, watching him calmly sipping a glass of water while Karasu spoke to him in a voice too low for her to make out. "Well," she began, attempting to generalise her knowledge, "the Uchiha was a famous ninja clan a long time ago. They had special abilities that put them above everyone else, you see, and they were one of the founding clans of Konoha."

"Doesn't that make him the enemy of the Hatake clan?" Kaoru pointed out.

"There was a power struggle between the founding clans," Sakura said quietly. "The ruling class marginalized the Uchiha clan, and when there was an uprising, they decided to have them all slaughtered. Young and old, male and female; they were all murdered in one night. Only one of them remains alive to this day and he's sitting down there."

"Konoha would pay a lot of money to get him back," Aki said. "Probably so they can snuff out the last one."

Sakura bit her tongue. She wanted to say it wasn't like that, that he was sought after because he was loved. Her heart ached to correct the other girl, but once again she was reminded of just how others saw Konoha. She'd always thought it was a wonderful village of kindness and freedom and had never been able to understand how others couldn't see that. Then she was told of genocides and conspiracies… and she could begin to see why Sasuke had done the things he'd done.

But unlike him, she couldn't abandon the village. If there was something sick and corrupting within Konoha, it wouldn't be changed by running away. What had Naruto said? Konoha's next era would belong to _him_, and when that time came, a whole new way of the ninja would dawn and he'd be leading it. Sakura would be part of that, even if Sasuke wouldn't.

…even if she would have to explain to Naruto that Kakashi wouldn't either.

"He's got weird eyes," Kaoru remarked distrustfully.

Sakura sat back on her heels, no longer able to watch. "He's blind," she sighed.

Kaoru stared at her. "You're kidding! But he just beat up six men on his way in!" Then she gasped. "Oh, I see! Blind swordsmen are always elite fighters whose other senses become supernaturally sharp!" she looked down at the dining room again. "Or maybe not. He just tried to take a bite out of his drink coaster."

"He's cute though, don't you think?" Aki whispered.

"Scary. I wouldn't want to bump into him in a dark alley," Kaoru admitted.

Sasuke's face could be a _little _severe sometimes…

"Yeah, we all know who _you_ want to fumble into in a dark alley," Aki said drolly.

"I don't," Sakura chirped. "Who? I've not heard about this."

"Oh – they're ringing the bell!" Kaoru gasped, surging back onto her feet one of the most obviously exuberant attempts to change the subject Sakura had ever seen. "One of us has to go down and see what they want."

"Go on then," Aki nudged her.

"No way! I can't face that many terrifying people in one room – _you_ go!" Kaoru hissed back.

Instead Aki began looking around. "Where's Yui? She's brave."

"She won't show her face since her lip was split…" Both girls glanced at Sakura but quickly looked away. The fact that Yui and Sakura had finally had a blazing row in the undercroft was all over the household, as was the news that Yui had stated her outright support for any assassination attempts made against Sakura. Also, in the way of all news spread by word of mouth, this had somewhere along the line become the rumour that Yui planned to kill to Sakura herself.

And frankly, Sakura wouldn't put it past the girl. But it seemed that for now, at least, Aki had managed to warn Yui away for a while by informing her that one Hatake Kakashi had a vested interest in Sakura's safety. It wasn't something Sakura wanted to get out, but if it could scare Yui off, she supposed there was _some_ merit in having a heartless villain whose name alone inspired fear as the father of one's child.

However, bad as Kakashi was, she didn't think he had anything on the young man sitting at the table in the room below.

"I'll go," Sakura volunteered with a sigh.

As she was on a mission, it was still her implicit duty to get as close to the Syndicate and their contacts – especially if one of those contacts was already an infamous missing-nin. As she hurriedly descended the stairs, she knew she was going to have to count on Sasuke's blindness in order to remain undetected. Back when she'd last met him by the river he hadn't been able to recognise her until she'd spoken, and that at least was something she wouldn't have to worry about. Maids, after all, were only supposed to be seen, never heard.

With quiet reverence she slipped into the dining chamber and kowtowed deeply to the table of 'honoured' guests. There was not a Zuru among them, she noticed, and she wondered how long it would be until they gave up all pretence and officially made Karasu the head of the estate. He was certainly acting King of the Castle, sat at the head of the table like that while surrounded by all his little subjects.

Sakura waited for her orders.

"Our friend here is weary from his travel and would like to retire," Karasu told her. "Please escort him to one of the guestrooms… miss."

The long pause before the generalised 'miss' reassured her. If he couldn't remember her name, she clearly hadn't managed to stick out much in his mind even after all that had happened. His request, on the other hand, left a little to be desired. She'd expected to be sent for another bottle of wine… not to escort Sasuke all the way to the guest wing on her own.

Sakura tried to force a little flem into her throat. "This way, sir," she said to Sasuke's back, forcing a slightly hoarser version of her own voice, as if she had a cold. She didn't want Sasuke to recognise her, but she didn't want to fake a voice so obviously that Karasu would notice either.

It seemed to work. Karasu went back to his drink as both Sakura and Sasuke stood… although when Sasuke held out his hand, Sakura froze, stymied. She stared at it, wondering what on earth he wanted.

"I can navigate from the grass village to the rain village by the feel of the sun on my face, but small corridors are more difficult," he said. "Lend me your shoulder."

_Oh, dear. _Without realising, she glanced at Karasu as if asking him what to do, but he only took one look at her expression and laughed. "Blindness isn't contagious. Give him your shoulder."

It wasn't the possibility of contracting near-sightedness from him that caused her concern. In actuality, it was the fact that last time she'd met him, she'd left with a concussion. As she reached out to take his hand and guide it to her shoulder, she was perfectly aware that there was a tremor she couldn't hide. He probably felt it, but he gave no outward sign of any interest. She supposed when you happened to be Uchiha Sasuke, you were used to girls trembling around you for one reason or another. Hopefully he wouldn't be able to recognise her from the shape of her shoulder alone, and so Sakura felt somewhat confident that she could guide him to his room without complete disaster.

Leading him out from under Karasu's nose without discovery proved to be the least nerve-wracking stage. It was as they walked silently through the empty corridors that Sakura felt the most on edge. Sasuke's hand seemed to weigh half a ton on her shoulder, and it burned away at her through the fabric of her yukata as if it was a branding iron. He said nothing to her as they walked, and in turn Sakura kept her lips firmly sealed.

She supposed it was up to her to select a room for him. There were still a few spare rooms in the guest wing that weren't occupied by members of the Hatake clan, but Sakura knew automatically that he wouldn't appreciate this. It could get quite noisy down there in the evening, and Sasuke had always been one who hated unnecessary noise, so instead Sakura lead him up the stairs to one of the overflow guest rooms. They were smaller, but he was blind vagabond, so what did he care?

She made sure to pick one of the rooms she knew had been cleaned and dusted recently and paused to push open the door for him. "Here you are, sir," she said, perhaps laying on a thicker, deeper rain country accent than she had back in the dining room.

To her enormous relief, his hand finally slid off her shoulder as he stepped into the room and paused a moment as if examining its worth. Sakura waited for him to dismiss her, unconsciously sucking on the tips of her hair as she watched his back.

"Where's the tea?" he asked her.

"Over there." Sakura pointed.

The look he shot in her direction may very well have killed her if it had landed. It took her a moment to realise why he was glaring like that, until she remembered blind men couldn't see pointed fingers all that well. "Oh, sorry," she mumbled. "I-I'll get it for you."

Carefully giving him a wide berth, she slipped around Sasuke to hurry over to the selection of low cupboards against the far wall where each room's tea set was always stored. She loaded everything he needed onto a tray and turned to lay it down on the sitting table beneath the window. A polite maid worth her wages would have stayed and done more than just plug the kettle in, but Sakura _seriously_ wanted out. "Is there anything else you need, sir?" she said in a quite discouraging tone as she turned back to where he stood before the door.

"No. You may go," he said indifferently.

Aki was right; he was rather easy on the eyes. But then Kaoru was right as well; this wasn't a person you wanted to be caught alone with.

"Thank you, sir." She didn't bother to bow, he wouldn't see it anyway – she just fixed her sights on the gap between him and the door and made a beeline to freedom.

The moment she passed him his hand snagged hers with remarkable accuracy, jerking her to a halt. Sakura didn't dare move. While his fingers rubbed along her palms, Sakura felt herself beginning to break out in a cold sweat.

"You have extraordinarily rough hands for a girl," he said, continuing to squeeze her fingers. "I noticed that when you first touched my hand."

Was he referring to when she'd picked up his hand back in the dining room? Or when she'd grabbed it by the river a few months ago?

"And you're still using the same shampoo, Sakura."

That tore it. Sakura surged towards the door, intending to make a clean getaway. Sasuke's grip only tightened, and with a swift tug she was pulled back into the room and all but thrown against the wall. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. For a moment all Sakura could do was gasp and hold onto a shelf for dear life as Sasuke calmly pushed the door shut and locked it.

Had he ever really needed escorting to his room? Perhaps from the very moment she'd walked into the dining room he'd recognised her? She hadn't realised her shampoo was that distinctive…

"I won't ask what you're doing here," he said, pulling off his hat to let it drop on the floor before reaching to slowly unsheathe his sword. "The answer to that's pretty obvious, and I'm certainly not conceited enough to think it has anything to do with me."

Her lungs were finally beginning to expand with air again, though she remained panting against the wall. She needed an escape. She needed a _weapon_. Discreetly her hand began reaching into her sleeve where she'd hidden the tourne knife in the lining of her dress. If she could just get it in her hand, she might stand a chance of taking him by surprise.

"Keep your hands out," Sasuke said suddenly, grabbing the hand that was reaching into her sleeve to shove it hard against the wall.

Sakura groped around desperately with her free hand. She didn't look at whatever it was her fingers landed on, but instinctively she picked it up and smacked it as hard as she could over Sasuke's head. The knife he'd sensed; it was the heavy tome of "Things to See Before You Die" that caught him by surprise.

As the book clattered to the ground, Sasuke's grip on her arm loosened just a fraction. That was all Sakura needed. She tore herself away from the wall and dove once more for the door, her fingers scrambling desperately for the lock. Precious seconds seemed to pass ever so slowly until the door clicked open…

And that was when Sasuke's sword appeared under her chin.

She heard him sigh behind her. "Don't move."

She didn't. He'd only cut her head off whichever way she tried to run now.

"Close the door and lock it. Or do you want the people here to see you like this?"

Sakura did as she was told, and snapped the lock in place again a little harder and angrier than necessary. There was no getting out of this one, that was obvious enough. When someone had a blade to your throat, you did as they said, and when he directed her to set down beside the table, she did so, and sat stiff and bolt upright while he took a seat opposite her and laid the sword down upon the table. It was a taunt. She could grab for it and hope for the best, but she knew from experience that his speed was insane. He could grab the sword and slice her to ribbons the second she so much as twitched her finger.

"You're definitely more gutsy than you used to be," he said, his hands feeling patiently over the tea set to learn cup from kettle. "Still pretty dumb though."

Sakura ground her teeth and glared at her lap. She wouldn't rise to the insult.

"I suppose you're here to infiltrate the Syndicate," he went on. "Which means you know now."

"Know what?" she asked in a low voice.

"You know the truth about the Syndicate's identity." His hands moved dextrously over the teapot as he spoke. "Now you also know why your mission around Jonan failed," he told her. "I did try to warn you, to spare your feelings. I told you that you didn't know who you were up against. Your mission had no chance of succeeding when you were up against your own partner without even realising. Where is he, anyway? I assume you've reported back to Konoha about his real identity by now."

Sakura said nothing. She didn't want to admit that Kakashi was free and she was essentially trapped here against her will. That would be pretty embarrassing.

At her silence, he just shrugged. "That's alright. I don't expect you to tell me anything. I did come here to sell information anyway."

"What information could you possibly sell to the Syndicate?" she asked incredulously. "You left the village seven years ago as a genin; any info you have is _seriously_ outdated and low-ranking."

"You know that," he said. "They don't."

"If you cheat these guys, they'll come after you," she warned.

"Do you think that concerns me?" he asked. "And why would you be worried for me anyway? You tried to kill me."

"It was _you _who tried to kill me! I did nothing for the sort!" she hissed passionately. "We had a... misunderstanding, that's all."

"You should thank Kakashi for being there. Or maybe I should?" he said softly as he poured the tea. "Did you know what he did?"

"Yes," she said stonily.

"And did he tell you why he did it?"

Sakura frowned deeply at him. Back then, Sasuke had known so much more than her about Kakashi's true nature despite not having seen him in four years. It galled Sakura to think back on it, but she was much wiser these days. "I can pretty much guess why he did it, thanks."

"Our teacher is a more selfish man than we ever realised, Sakura," he went on. "You have to appreciate that kind of ruthlessness. But I knew the truth then, and I expected it from him... but from you? I won't say something uncool like 'I trusted you', because I didn't. I just didn't think you had it in you, so I let my guard down. It's a mistake I won't be making again."

She shook her head. "I can't do anything to you here," she sighed. "If you decided to kill me, you could do it easily."

"Don't say that," he chided. "It might actually make me feel bad about killing you."

A horrible shudder ran through Sakura's body as she clenched her eyes shut. "You can't kill me," she told him firmly.

"Didn't you just say I could?" he pointed out. "Very easily at that."

Sakura glared at him testily. "Alright. You _could _kill me. But I think you really shouldn't."

"Why would that be?" he inquired politely.

She had to pick her words very carefully and say them just right. It would be very easy for him to just think she was lying… as even in her head she knew it sounded like a bad joke. "Because I'm pregnant," she told him quietly.

A tiny little cross appeared between his eyebrows in his otherwise flawlessly smooth face. "You're lying," he said.

"Are you sure? You said you could tell when I'm lying."

"Since when…?" That tiny little frown deepened. His hand suddenly flew out to bump against her chest – making her squeak and push at his groping fingers – before brushing down over the not-so-flat span of her belly. The undeniable proof of her claim was there before him. "Who's the-?"

"That's none of your business," she said shortly. "I'm just telling you all you need to know. I'm stuck in this place with a brat on the way, I have some stupid mother-foetus incompatibility syndrome so my chakra has been totally neutralised, and so if you're going to threaten to kill me, you should know you're threatening two."

"It's Naruto, isn't it?" Ignoring the whole part where it was _none of his business._ "You really did it with him."

"Even if I had, I wouldn't tell you!" she snapped.

"What could you possiby see in a moron like that?" Sasuke looked outright repulsed.

That comment was too rich for Sakura to let lie. "For a start, he's never tried to kill me!"

"So you admit you slept with him?"

"No - I'm admitting I'll never sleep with you!"

"We're off the subject," he dodged swiftly, picking up his tea cup to take an enormous swig. As he put it down he frowned again. "The tea's very milky in this place."

"That's because you just drank the milk," she pointed out, slightly horrified.

"Listen, the _point_ is," he carried on as if he hadn't heard her, "that you need to leave this house. This is no place for you in that condition."

Sakura folded her arms. "I can't leave here," she said stubbornly. "I told you, I'm stuck. As long as I have no chakra, I can't hold my own against the people who would try to stop me, and thanks to this baby, I'll probably be killed if I attempt to leave." And that was saying nothing about how Kakashi had assigned his own summons to keep her exactly where she was. She wouldn't be surprised if Pakkun was nearby at this very moment, listening in on this conversation.

"Why would you be killed if you leave?" he asked. "Have you been discovered as a spy?"

"No. But as long as they believe the one who impregnated me is the heir of the estate, I'm going nowhere," she said.

"The heir?" he repeated. His face smoothed out again. "I'm surprised they haven't tried to kill you."

"There's already been an attempt on my life," she said. "Perhaps the only reason there hasn't been another is because everyone would know. They're going to wait until the child is born, and depending on its gender, they might try to kill it. Or me. Or both."

"All the more reason to get out of here," he pointed out.

"Are you worried for me?" She almost smirked at him. "Even after I tried to kill you?"

"I'm just pointing out the obvious course of action for you," he said, shrugging.

She watched him closely as he located his actual cup of tea and drank it carefully. He could try to hide it, but he was concerned for her, even if it was only a little bit. The news of her pregnancy had shocked him, she could see that, and Uchiha Sasuke wasn't as heartless as he wished he was. His soft spots were few and far between, but evidently one was babies.

"I could get out of here if you helped me," she suggested, not at all casually. "You'd only have to help me as far as Amegakure. From there I'd be able to contact Konoha and get out of this mess."

He caught on quickly. "You can't contact them from here?"

"No…" she said slowly, realising she was digging herself a hole.

"Sakura, do they even know the Syndicate is here? Do they even know _who_ the Syndicate is?"

She scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably. "It's not my fault – I tried to contact them but he intercepted-"

"Who?"

She shouldn't tell him. She shouldn't tell him. But he was her only ticket out of here… "Kakashi-sensei. He found out I was here and took away my only means of communication and left me," she said, and then added for dramatic effect, "to die."

"He obviously didn't. If he left you here to die, he would have told his clan exactly who you are, and if that was the case you'd be dead by now."

"Are you going to help me out of here or not?" she demanded. "The longer I stay here, the more danger I'm in. Kakashi's bastard 'cousin' will kill me the second I slip up, the Zuru family will kill me the second I give birth to the wrong gender, and there's this psychotic crazy girl called Yui who plans to piss on my grave – so seriously – I'm begging you – _I need to get out of here_."

Sasuke set down his tea cup and gazed off towards the window. She wondered if he could at least still see the semblance of light, however bad his eyesight was. "If I do that, you'll report back to Konoha. The Syndicate will be dealt a terrible blow and Kakashi may well be executed."

The Syndicate's destruction was something she was perfectly fine with. She told herself heartlessly she would be glad if Kakashi went down with them… but she couldn't lie to herself. Even if he had betrayed her and the village, and all but ripped her metaphorical heart from her metaphorical chest, it couldn't erase eight years of fond memories. She could no more wish harm on him than she could on Naruto.

However, if it came down to a matter of her life or his, she knew she would have to be selfish. At least now that her life counted for two these days. "I'm aware of what will happen," she said stiffly.

"And you're also aware that I have no intention of helping Konoha," he returned. He lifted the sword from the table and quietly sheathed it once more.

Sakura just gaped at him. "You'd risk my life just to stick it to Konoha?!" she cried.

"Yes," he said simply, once more calmly sipping his tea. "But your chances of survival aren't that abysmal. If the Syndicate don't find out you're a spy, you won't be harmed by them. If the baby is female, the Zuru family stand to lose nothing and have no reason to harm you either. So optimistically, you have a fifty percent chance of getting out of here alive by yourself. Maybe twenty-five, given your bad acting skills."

Sakura wondered whether she should tip the whole pot over his head. "You bastard…"

"We're enemies, Sakura. Don't ever forget that," he told her. "I may have idle concern for your condition, and even some sympathy on a personal level. However, if the Syndicate can destroy Konoha, I will gladly assist them-"

"By selling false information-"

"At the very least I won't stand in their way," he corrected himself. "You and I are on different sides in this war. I won't expose you to Hatake Karasu and the others, but my cooperation with you ends there. From what you say, your life is not in any immediate danger, so I have no reason to help you."

Sakura stood up sharply. "Bastard," she hissed.

He shrugged. "You can go now."

Gladly. Sakura whirled in place and slammed the door in her wake as she stormed from the room. But as she marched blindly through the corridors with no particular destination in mind, she wondered why she was so angry. She couldn't have hoped for help off this particular person. She should have been grateful he was willing to leave her alive.

A faint skitter of claws on floorboards in the corridor behind her almost made her stop. Pakkun was nearby, just as she'd suspected. But at the end of the day, he was just a dog, and she would find a way out of here with or without Sasuke's help.

* * *

"… and that's how I became ANBU captain."

"But… if you lost your arm, what is that?" the woman asked, pointing to Tenzou's left arm that was leaning on the table between them.

"Oh, that? It grew back."

Whether the woman believed him or not didn't matter. Her face turned white either way and her eyes started inching towards the entrance of the bar. "I… I think I'll just go visit the ladies' room," she said weakly.

"I'll go get us another drink," Tenzou declared happily, heading back towards the bar to refill their order. But of course, by the time he returned to the table, his date had yet to return from the restroom, though sitting in her seat was Konoha's resident White-Haired Deadbeat, as Tenzou had recently decided to dub him.

"Go away, I'm working here," Tenzou tried to make shooing gestures at him.

"Red hair, black dress?" Kakashi guessed.

"Yes…"

"I think I saw her climbing out the window." Kakashi picked up the cocktail glass Tenzou had brought over and took a dainty sip. "You weren't doing 'wood' puns again, were you?"

"I don't know where you get off trying to criticising my seduction techniques given your record as a drunken fiend who knocks up poor innocent virgins and then goes chasing other women with flowers when her back's turned. Some guy you are, sempai," Tenzou began gulping down his beer. "No. Not sempai. You're dead to me now."

"Don't fall out with me, Tenzou," Kakashi said, plucking at his friend's ear.

"Someone has to," the younger man grumbled. "Everyone around here thinks you're wonderful and perfect and such a gentlemen. Only I know the truth. Tenzou alone knows the real darkness hiding inside Hatake Kakashi's heart."

Kakashi sighed. "Exactly why I need you of all people to still be my friend," he said. "When everything comes out, I'll be lucky to have a single friend standing beside me. I'll be lucky if I'm not forced to commit seppuku ."

"Can I be your second?" Tenzou asked without missing a beat.

"You'd just love cutting my head off, wouldn't you?"

"Just out of curiosity to confirm my suspicion that you _are_ completely hollow inside." Tenzou propped his chin on his fist. "You're exaggerating anyway. No one's going to make you kill yourself over a girl."

"Was that what we were talking about?" Kakashi wondered distantly.

"Unless there's some other shame you're hiding in the closet?" Tenzou set down his beer with a thump. "There better not be, because the only thing you should be worrying about right now is that poor girl! Why are you even here anyway? Haven't you got sympathetic leave yet?"

"This afternoon, yes."

"And you haven't left yet? If you were a real man you'd be halfway to wherever Sakura is right this minute in order to provide your care and support and your hand in marriage," Tenzou lectured. "Asshole."

Kakashi ignored that last word. "I can't go anywhere," he moaned, putting his face in his hands again. "The hokage wants me to stay and investigate the assassination attempt made on her today."

"Oh, hey. What?" Tenzou blinked. "Assassination attempt?"

"It's being kept quiet... we don't want enemies knowing they almost succeeded. She's fine now. However, Sable is dead and her secrets probably died with her, but I'm apparently the only person the Hokage 'trusts' enough to perform an adequate investigation at Sable's apartment and her workplace." Kakashi's head got closer to the table. "Can you imagine that? She trusts me more than any other person in this village right now. What kind of sick joke is this to play on a man?"

Tenzou gazed around the dark, crowded bar as he thought hard. "Sable… Sable… the one who worked at the administration office? She was an assassin?"

"Did you know her?" Kakashi asked curiously.

"No," the ANBU captain replied honestly. "But she was sort of hot. How come you can't shift the investigation though? Isn't Sakura more important?"

"Yes… but this is important too." Kakashi dragged his finger around the lip of his cocktail glass and stuck the sugary digit in his mouth. "I need to oversee Sable's case myself. Sakura may have to wait a while longer… but it's not like she's dying to see me again any time soon anyway."

"That's for sure," Tenzou grunted. "After what you did to her."

"You have no idea what I did to her." Kakashi grunted back, taking another sip of his drink. "What is this anyway?"

Tenzou glanced at the tall glass his sempai was drinking from and said, "It's a Pink Pussy."

Kakashi rather quickly put it down and leant over sideways to spit out the mouthful on the floor. The woman unfortunate enough to be standing there gasped and stumbled away to glare him from a safer distance. Ignoring her, Kakashi turned back to Tenzou. "That's disgusting and offensive to women."

"_You're_ disgusting and offensive to women."

"What happened to the cute, sensible names…? Like Peach-tini, or Summer Fruits, or Plum Cordials and Cherry… Cherry Blossom… blossoms."

Kakashi was staring rather glumly at the table, and for once Tenzou began to wonder if he was being a little hard on his sempai. The man was inflicted with an eternally passionless face and an even less emotive voice, but it would be a mistake to think he didn't care. He kept his feelings close to his chest at the best of times, and if Tenzou could already see through the cracks in his uncaring façade, he knew it was bad.

The beer bottle shuddered as he pushed it towards Kakashi. "It's ok. You can have mine, sempai."

Kakashi looked at it. "It's got your spit on it."

With wonderful patience, even for Tenzou, he restrained himself from smashing the bottle over Kakashi's head. "Cheer up. There's plenty of time before the baby's born, I'm sure you'll manage to patch it up with her before then."

"I told you, we don't have that kind of relationship."

"Then why the hell did you sleep with her?" Tenzou blurted out. "You must care for her at least a little."

"The circumstances leading up to that moment were… mitigating." Kakashi said thickly, picking the Pink Pussy up again to take another drink anyway.

"Explain it to me then."

"You wouldn't understand."

"It's not like we're going anywhere. We're going to drink until we can't read the drinks menu anymore and then we're going to go back to your place and fall asleep in another embarrassing position on your bed and wake up tomorrow with a hangover and maybe even a curiously sore ass, so we have time."

Kakashi shook his head and made an effort to down the rest of the drink in one go, apparently forgetting his previous aversion to its name. "Let's not lament over past regrets. When something goes wrong, you shouldn't ask how it happened but instead how you can fix it."

"Asking how it happened is usually the only way to fix anything…" Tenzou muttered.

"You're drunk, sir," Kakashi said dismissively, rising to his feet. "And I'm going home alone. Don't stay up too late, Tenzou."

"Goodnight, sempai."

Kakashi weaved and bumped his way out of the bar and set off on his way home. That pink drink was remarkably strong stuff, although it was always possible his kohai had spiked it to punish him. As he let himself into his apartment he kicked on his electric heater and went almost immediately to his desk drawers in search of cigarettes. He'd had at least two packets here, he was sure of it. Where on earth had they gone?

Rubbing a hand through his hair in frustration, Kakashi sat down on his desk chair and let his head drop into his arms.

A rough day; he could say that much at least. It wasn't every day you killed one of your own family members to assure their silence, and he wondered if it had been worth it. He would be discovered one day… that was for sure, although whether it would be by someone else's error or the discovery of the trail of bodies he was beginning to leave was still an unknown. If he hadn't had someone to protect over there, he might have been able to leave her alive and let her say whatever the hell she wanted.

But how on earth did you go about protecting all those you cared for when they insisted on declaring international war with each other? Was it too much to ask for a cigarette? Why of all times did the universe choose to deprive him _now_?

Beside him the heater continued to rotate slowly in small arcs, squeaking softly every time it bumped the edge of the desk. The sound annoyed him. It reminded him of another time he'd rather forget, and with another well aimed kick he knocked it over and heard it click as it switched itself off automatically. The room turned a fraction colder and darker. But he'd rather put up with cold November evenings than remember the hot summer ones of a few months ago. Too hot. The heat still burned him.

As Kakashi moved his arm across the desk, he heard something skitter against his sleeve. Lifting his head, he realised it was just a folded piece of paper on his otherwise empty worktop. He frowned at it. Was that still here?

The lamp beside him flickered to life as he opened the note and began to read it all over again.

_Kakashi-sensei,_

_I'm in a bit of trouble right now, and I need your help. I have to leave on a mission today so I suppose I won't be able to see you for a while, but I need you to contact me as I have something very urgent to tell you. I know Pakkun can contact my summon Dokko, and he'll be able to give you a time and a frequency. I only have a long-range radio, I'm afraid. I wish I could speak to you face to face, but under the circumstances that won't be possible, and perhaps it's better this way anyhow._

_Please contact me as soon as you can. You're the only one I trust to speak to._

_Much love, Sakura._

There was that dreadful sentiment again. _You're the only one I trust._

Kakashi slipped the note in with the other letters in his drawer and quietly reached out to turn off the lamp again.

One night's madness was finally beginning to snowball. One small act had been a tiny stone bouncing against the window of a glass house, and now the cracks kept spreading wider and wider and it was only a matter of time before a million murderous shards began raining down on his head. On Konoha's head. On his own family's heads.

But he wouldn't let it touch Sakura. Even if it killed him, he would protect her. Not just because she was pregnant and it was his fault and she was now mixing with dangerous people… but because it had meant something. He wasn't just 'a guy' as he'd told on the rainy walkway outside his apartment and Tenzou was often more perceptive than even he realised. He couldn't sleep with a girl he didn't care about.

So far he'd tried not to think about what had taken place on that mission, not when it marked the end of a relationship he'd valued and now feared he'd never get back. He'd almost felt until now that he just didn't have the _right _to remember. But now in the darkness of his apartment he could think of nothing else.

* * *

Next Chapter:_ One Night in July_


	22. One Night in July

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-One: One Night in July

* * *

_Out of nothing you came to my arms and you're right,_

_I fell every time._

* * *

Kakashi had known from the start this would be a mission more trouble than it was worth.

He'd known it the moment Tsunade had handed him and his team two scrolls and told him to investigate two rumours, oblivious the the fact that one of these towns under investigation was one he knew to be a frequently used meeting point between his family and their contacts. He'd carefully arranged to handle the investigation into Jonan himself, bringing along his most obedient subordinate while leaving the two hotheads, Naruto and Sai, to handle the decoy. If ever there was a rendezvous arranged in Jonan, it always took place at the inn, which was why he'd been so careful to send Sakura down into the busy town to watch the crowds where she was least likely to see anything. But he'd seen Reika hanging around the inn more than once, enjoying her acting role as a common maid, and she'd almost certainly seen him. The Iwa jonin who'd been staying in room sixteen was tipped off, and he'd jokingly handed off his marked headband to a young man on staff who was on his way down to the town centre for a drink with his friend. If he'd wanted to confuse the Konoha ninja looking for him, he'd succeeded. Sakura had kicked that poor young man pretty damn hard.

He'd seen trouble again when Sakura had returned to the inn with him. Reika was still about, pretending to be a doormaid now, and though he doubted she could hurt Sakura if she was so inclined, Kakashi was leery about letting the two women get a good look at one another. He'd tried to make Sakura stay in the room for the rest of the evening with mixed success, knowing that his contrived attempts to keep her confined did nothing but confuse and annoy. That was troublesome, but he'd thought then at the time that once morning came it would be over. There would be no further need to lie and mislead. There was nothing more to cover-up, and he could go back to pretending to everyone and himself that he was a diligent, honourable... _loyal _shinobi of Konoha.

And then he'd heard Sakura's voice over the radio telling him she was buying feminine products, which would only have been true if she'd told him she was buying magazines. Considering she wasn't even supposed to have a menstrual cycle, the obvious lie sounded suspiciously fabricated to get rid of him, so it was only inevitable that he back-hacked her radio. How could she think he wouldnt?

What he overheard brought him to the grudging realisation that the trouble on this mission was far from over. He knew it when he heard her soft, hesitant voice asking Sasuke if it was ok to kiss him, because where Sasuke hadn't seen Sakura in four years and hadn't known her in eight, Kakashi knew her all too well. A quarter of a mile away from where the two lovebirds were courting, Kakashi realised Sakura's plan long before Sasuke did, but it wasn't until he heard the distant crash and scream that his heart nearly stopped and he broke into a run.

He'd _known _from the start this would be a mission more trouble than it was worth!

And that was how he came to find himself standing in the middle of a river amongst the rubble of a demolished bridge with a half-drowned girl in his arms, looking out at another unconscious boy lying amongst the reeds. Only one word summed up his feelings upon arrival at that scene, and it was not polite.

He looked down at the white, listless girl in his arms and felt a pang of alarm at the web of blood that was spreading from her hairline. "Stupid girl," he whispered as he dragged her through the water to the riverbank. "Was smashing things with your fists not exciting enough, you had to use your skull too?"

But she didn't respond. She wasn't even breathing.

Whether it was the knock to the head or the intake of river water, her lips were taking on a frightening blue tinge. The soft, grassy bank was the only place Kakashi could lay Sakura's body flat, and there stretched out on the bank with her feet still bobbing in the water, she looked like a deathly pale cadaver. A quick pass over her neck showed she at least still had a pulse.

"I haven't done this in a while," he told he as he took down his mask. "So don't laugh at me if I get this wrong, Miss Medic."

She offered up no protest as he leant down and pressed his mouth over her cold, slippery lips. He told himself that if this didn't work, it would be her own fault, because she was the one who had taught him how to do mouth to mouth – not exactly by example, but he hoped he'd more or less grasped the explanation she'd given him.

Her chest lifted as he blew air into her lungs. He waited and watched, but her body didn't follow the lead, and so with measure patience he pinched her nose and repeated the action.

What if this didn't work? What if Sakura died here on this riverbank, in the middle of nowhere? What the hell was he supposed to do then? Recovering Sasuke for Konoha would be little consolation for losing one of his favourite subordinates.

His favourite girl.

"Come on, Sakura," he whispered, not at all surprised by how close to begging it sounded. "Stop this."

He lowered his head and blew with increasing desperation, and it was then that he felt the breath he'd given her catch in her throat. Her elbow bumped against his chest, weakly pushing against him and she seemed to be trying to turn her head away from him. Kakashi was all too happy to sit up and give her room to breathe on her own, and it was a good thing he did too, as Sakura chose that moment to flop over onto her side and vomit.

Kakashi didn't think he'd ever seen a more beautiful sight. He stroked her hair back as she wretched and shivered, hoping that this at least was a reaction to her injuries and not his admittedly tobacco flavoured breath. "You're alright now," he reassured her. "You're safe."

She gave a faint, unconvinced grunt and let her head drop back, conscious, but only just. The ugly wound beneath her hair needed fixing, and she was soaked to the bone with cold, dirty river water. He needed to get her somewhere safer – somewhere warm, and dry, and clean. But what if something else was broken? He'd already taken a huge risk just moving her to the bank after seeing the impact her body had made on that bridge.

Carefully he ran his hands over her, searching for hidden injuries. She didn't seem to notice until she grunted slightly when he pressed one of her ribs. There was blood on her hand as well, but it wasn't her own, and he only needed to look at the down-turned kakute ring on her finger to know where it was from. If he looked, there would probably be a matching puncture wound somewhere on Sasuke, and there was perhaps something more besides blood on that studded ring judging by his current state. A sedative? Sakura had always been an expert at poisons and tranquillisers.

He slipped the ring off her finger, just in case she scratched herself accidentally in her half-aware state and put it in his pocket. He would have picked her up then and carried her into the town, only…

Kakashi looked over his shoulder. Sasuke still lay amongst the reeds, unmoving.

_Leave him_, the colder part of him rationalised. _If the river comes up in the night, let him drown._

And yet, Sakura had risked this much just to neutralise him…

"I need to take care of something, Sakura," he said, as he pulled a medi-kit from his pack and applied a pad of fresh gauze to her head. "Stay here and don't move. I'll be back in a minute."

Ever the resilient warrior, Sakura gave another vague grunt of agreement, although she was probably too busy swinging in and out of consciousness to care about her surroundings. He left her side reluctantly, and walked back across the surface of the river to where Sasuke still lay. He could have been dead already for how peaceful he looked, and indeed there was a streak of blood oozing from a hole in the back of his neck. Sakura must have gotten pretty close to grab him there.

He wasn't sure what Sakura had given to him precisely to make him sleep so soundly, but Kakashi had his own methods of rousing patients. Reaching down, he rolled the sodden carcass of the younger man onto his back and peered grimly into his face. Like Sakura he seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness with barely more than a flicker of his eyelashes and a half-hearted movement of an arm. It wasn't good enough. So Kakashi drew back his hand and (for Sasuke's own benefit, he told himself) slapped him hard across his wet cheek.

The boy grunted and tensed, stirring somewhat from his stupor. He lifted his head and opened his mouth and Kakashi took the opportunity to shove a small, round pill between his lips. "Bite it, Sasuke," he ordered. "These things can jumpstart the dead."

He heard teeth click against the hard bead, and suddenly Sasuke's face crumpled in disgust. It was working. As the bitter taste flooded his mouth, his eyes began to open and strength returned to his limbs. After a few hazy moments he began to sit up, unaided.

"Kakashi?" he grunted. "Did you plan this between you? I can't believe I got taken in by the oldest trick in the book."

"Sakura acted alone, I'm afraid," Kakashi said, packing away the rest of the pills into his medi-kit. "She got you pretty good, I see. But to be honest, if I was her, I wouldn't have bothered."

"Where is she?" Sasuke spat out the pill onto his hand.

"You might want to keep biting that, by the way. It's just a little stimulant to counteract the sedative Sakura gave you," Kakashi told him thinly. "You'll be glad of it, unless you want to spend the night out here on your own and wake up tomorrow robbed blind. Sorry. Robbed naked."

"You're not taking me in?" Sasuke asked with a confused frown.

Kakashi reached down to pick up the sword that had fallen amongst the reeds. "Why would I want to take you in, Sasuke?" he said lightly. "We both know that wouldn't benefit either of us."

The blind boy began to sit up more stiffly. "You overheard what I said to Sakura, didn't you?" he grunted. "So you realise how much I know about the Syndicate. About you."

"If you still hate Konoha, you won't tell anyone else," Kakashi said, "We're virtually on the same side, you and I, so as a gift from one ally to another, I'll let you go. In return for going quietly on your way, we'll go quietly on ours, and next time just think twice before accepting a kiss from a strange girl."

"A strange girl, huh?" Sasuke pushed himself to his feet and accepted the sword Kakashi handed to him.

"You should have known," Kakashi sighed. "Just because she loves you doesn't mean she wouldn't stab you in the back. Quite literally in this case."

Sasuke's expression was oddly vacant. "Is she alright?" he asked quietly.

The urge to kick him in the face was strong, but Kakashi mastered it after a moment. "Goodbye, Sasuke," was all Kakashi said before turning to walk back across the river. He gently lifted the unconscious girl up into his arms and began climbing the bank towards the town.

He didn't look back once, and never saw which direction Sasuke chose to take.

* * *

"…making a nuisance of yourself again…"

Something wet and cold tugged on her foot.

"…can't take you anywhere…"

One boot slid off and hit the floor with a wet slap, and from the hollow impact she instinctively knew she was in a small room with a wooden floor. The other boot soon followed the first, and Sakura sighed a little in relief as some warmth touched her frosted toes. But then the person was moving up her, beginning to unzip her vest.

"…stupid things in the past… this really takes the biscuit…"

"No," Sakura muttered, trying to push his hands away. She had no idea where she was or what had happened, but she still had her sense of modesty and knew she didn't want him taking her vest off. He said something, but she couldn't make it out; he sounded like he was speaking to her from the other end of a long tube. Whatever he said, it probably meant 'shut up', as he brushed her hands aside as if they were nothing but weeds and began peeling the wet vest down her arms.

"…you think… won't be reporting this… can think again."

Tugs at her hip warned her that her skirt was coming off, and a moment later she could feel her sopping nylon shorts being dragged down over her knees. She was pretty sure her underwear was being dragged down with them. Faintly angry now, she struck blindly and was satisfied when her cold fingers connected with someone's face, and probably up his nostrils too.

"…you calm down!" he said, pushing her back down, even as he began plucking the damp straps of her bra off. "Like you've anything worth hiding."

Her bra joined the wet pile of clothes on the floor, and Sakura belatedly tried to lunge after it. Before she could even figure out which direction to lunge in, a warm hand was pressing her shoulder back down and suddenly she was swathed in the warmest, toastiest blanket she'd ever been swathed in. She lay still and shivering, not as conscious of her nakedness as she was of how desperately cold she was and how much her head hurt.

"Do you know where you are, Sakura?" asked the person immobilising her with the blanket.

She shook her head faintly. If she were a little warmer, she may have had the energy for her teeth to chatter.

"We're in a hotel. You hit your head back at the river, remember? You need to heal… and you have to stay conscious for me."

"M'alright," she slurred, reaching up to touch her head. "S'just a bump."

"You've been unconscious for an hour. Sasuke got away."

Perhaps it was the healing chakra in her fingers that was busy soothing the bruising around the base of her skull, or perhaps it was just the mention of his name, but suddenly Sakura's eyes cracked open and the memory of what had happened came flooding back. Her kakute ring, Sasuke's blood on her fingers… the way his hand had twisted in her vest before he'd sent her flying. It had all happened so fast, and she'd risked it all for nothing. He'd gotten away.

Unbidden tears began to leak down her temples. "Sensei," she rasped. "I think I did something really stupid."

His face was blurred, but pale. He wasn't wearing his mask as he hovered above her and his impossibly warm hand pushed back the hair from her forehead. "Of course you did," he said. "What mission would be complete without Haruno Sakura doing something _really_ stupid?"

He seemed to be trying to cheer her up, but even in her dizzy state she could tell his tone was strained. There was anger in him, vibrating just beneath the surface. She could feel it in the thrum of his hot palm against her cold brow.

"His face…" she whispered. "It was horrible."

"Forget it, Sakura, just concentrate on healing," he ordered.

"I betrayed him."

"_Heal,"_ he pressed again. "That's an order."

It was hard to concentrate when you felt like your brain was scattered in a hundred different places. The pain and confusion clouded her focus, but it seemed that every time she put another piece back in place, it got easier to think. It got easier to see too. The room she'd thought was dark was in fact bathed in soft orange light, the source of which was an old halogen heater in the corner. She could feel its warmth against one side of her face, and the more she healed, the more she became aware of the sound it was making… a soft, intermittent squeak of plastic every time its slow rotation changed direction.

There was also a bed in this room standing against the wall, but the sheets and covers had been totally stripped, presumably to provide her bedding on the floor where she was nearer to the heater. Now that she could see, she realised how little space there was in this room. If she reached out, she could touch the frame of the bed while her other elbow banged the wall, and Kakashi, who sat with his back against the bed post was so close she could put her hand on his knee. She heard the hiss and slide of paper and knew he was reading. That comforted her. If the world came apart at the seams and up became down and oceans turned to deserts, as long as Kakashi was reading, it couldn't be all that bad.

Warmth gradually began to seep back into her body and the pain in her head faded. Without intending to she found herself drifting back to sleep, lulled by her cosy surroundings and the soft repetitive noises of the squeaking heater and the turning pages of Kakashi's magazine.

When she stirred, several things had changed.

Above her head a makeshift washing line had been set up, composed of a length of garrotting wire strung between two kunai wedged into opposite walls. There was her vest and her shorts and her bra and… her panties. Sakura now at least had enough presence of mind to feel acutely embarrassed, especially when she noticed that she herself was no longer naked. Judging from the smell (that horrible bitter tang of tobacco) and the swamping length of the sleeves, she realised she was wearing Kakashi's black sweater.

The man himself was exactly where she'd last left him, though now he was down to his black vest only, and his head was tipped back against the bed. The magazine – a nasty one with pictures of slutty girls in unladylike poses – was open on his lap and all but forgotten. A dribble of ash from the end of his stubby cigarette had fallen in a neat heap on one of the pages, meaning it had probably been a while since he'd looked down. Complete with the half empty can of vending-machine standard shochu, it made for a terrible image. Cigarettes, porn, and alcohol; Hatake Kakashi was one depraved man.

The covers of her little bed combined with the blasting warmth from the heater was beginning to overwhelm her. No longer content to lie still, Sakura pushed back the blankets and sat up, making sure the sweater she'd been given still covered all the important bits and hadn't ridden up. It was a good thing too, as the faint sounds of her movement was enough to rouse Kakashi instantly.

His head came up with a faint sigh and for a moment he blinked a sleepy eye at her. He stubbed the cigarette out on the magazine and tossed both aside, before asking her, "How are you feeling?"

She rolled her head from side to side, testing her muscles. "Sore…" she admitted. "But I'm ok, I think." Physically at least. Her gaze fell to her covered knees as her thoughts were irresistibly drawn back to the fight she'd so narrowly escaped. The sedative dose she'd given Sasuke was supposed to have been instantaneous, yet he'd somehow still had the time to attack her. It was a mistake that had nearly cost her her life… and that was enough to leave a cold, unpleasant feeling in her stomach that almost made it impossible to appreciate that she was still here.

Not only that, but to have come so close to neutralising Sasuke, only to have him slip through her fingers yet again…

She was startled from the grip of her low thoughts when Kakashi's hand touched the top of her head. She looked at him, expecting to see one of his special, reassuring smiles that she only saw rarely when his mask was pulled down, but right now his face was oddly empty. The hitai-ate was still slumped over his left eye while the other was hooded, almost shut, and much darker than usual.

And come to think of it, the hand on the top of her hair was not so much like the usual affection touch her gave her. It was more like way you might put your hand over someone's head immediately before shoving their head under water.

Sakura stared openly at Kakashi with wide eyes, waiting for it. She could tell it was coming. As sure as the sun would rise tomorrow, it was coming, and there was no avoiding it.

"…stupid girl."

He said it softly, and perhaps compared to some of the things he's said to her in the past, it was pretty mild. Yet the two words seemed to burrow deep into her chest and wrap around her heart, making it difficult to breathe. Sakura's eyes fell to her blankets again, painfully and acutely aware of how quiet it was in this little hotel room and how hot that heater was against her back.

"Do you think this is the dark ages? You used your body as bait and you nearly died because of that stunt. It might have served you right." His hand slipped her head to snatch the can of shochu from the floor beside him. "Orochimaru was a poisons expert. You know as well as I do that he trained up Sasuke's physical resistance to toxins. You _should_ have known a regular sleeping agent wouldn't have worked."

Sakura swallowed around the hard lump in her throat. "What was I supposed to do?" she asked bitterly. "Let him walk away?"

"_Yes. _You were supposed to let him walk away. If Naruto wants him back, let _him_ deal with Sasuke. However, I never want to see you risking your life so pointlessly ever again," Kakashi said harshly, tilting the can upside down to drink from the tab. She saw the muscles of his throat working and had to look away. "If you do anything that stupid again, I'll kill you myself."

"It's not fair," she whispered into her chest. "I care about Sasuke as much as Naruto. Why shouldn't I do all I can to bring him home?"

"Honestly?" Kakashi prompted. "You're not as strong as Naruto. You're certainly not as strong as Sasuke. _I'm _not as strong as Sasuke. You engage him alone like that and you're as good as throwing your life away. Though I have to admit being female gave you a narrow advantage for a while there. I don't think he would have let Naruto kiss him like that."

Sakura's cheeks began to heat in embarrassment. "How did you know…?" she asked.

"You'd never tell me you were buying 'female stuff' unless you were trying to scare me off," he said. "So I back-hacked the radio. It was very… enlightening."

Oh, god. Sakura squeezed her eyes shut. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to figure out what you were up to long before _he_ did," he sighed. "Though I take offence at any accusation I ever did drugs while I was teaching."

"Sorry…"

"I stopped that stuff _long _before I became a teacher to you guys."

She wondered if that was a joke, but when she slid her gaze back to him his face was still deadly serious. Even if he was pulling her leg a little, neither of them were in the mood to smile and laugh like last night.

"You idiot," he said softly, much less harshly than before. "What would I have done if I'd lost you?"

His tone only made her feel even guiltier. Not only had she backstabbed Sasuke at a point when she'd finally gained some semblance of trust from him, but she'd worried Kakashi. "I'm sorry," she whispered again.

As he took another slow slurp of his drink, his eye narrowed on her. "How does it feel?" he asked. "Having the shit kicked out of you by someone you love?"

It was getting harder to see past that glaze of tears covering her eyes. "Not good," she croaked, and she couldn't elaborate any more than that without breaking down.

"I know," he whispered back. "You have to let him go, Sakura, or it'll always hurt."

She was trying desperately to hold back the tears, but it was impossible. Her body quivered with the effort to regulate her breathing and though she dashed away the first drop of moisture on her cheek with reckless nonchalance, there were plenty more to replace it.

"Don't cry," he said gently.

Of course, that was all she needed to push her over the edge. The dam broke and Sakura buried her face in her hands as silent sobs began to rack her slight frame.

She'd rather he shout at her and tell her how stupid she'd been, because then she'd be able to shout back and bury how pitiful and miserable she felt now with righteous anger. She'd wanted to do her best. She'd wanted to see everyone's face, especially Kakashi's, when she showed them that she, Haruno Sakura, had finally done what no one else had been able to do: bring Sasuke home.

It had been a dirty trick she'd pulled, distracting him with a kiss so he wouldn't notice the studded poison ring she wore when she reached for his neck, but then she was a _ninja. _Dirty tricks were in the guidelines. And whatever betrayal she'd dealt to Sasuke, she felt she could be redeemed once he was shown how much his friends still loved him.

But her betrayal was for nothing, and because she'd dealt the first blow she'd opened the opportunity for violence. He'd almost killed her. Why hadn't he killed her? Had he left her alive on purpose, or had he left her for dead?

Tentative fingers touched the top of her head again in a faint gesture of comfort. Even though the contact was small and offered so very little, she felt her heart leap in longing. Kakashi was here. He was the _only _person here, and Sakura so desperately needed another soul to cling to right then that her body lurched unthinkingly towards him. If she'd been closer, and perhaps a little braver, she could have buried her face in her chest. Instead she fell beside his knee and began crying in earnest as her fingers twisted into the material of his pants.

He hesitated before laying his hand on her head again, and as he hiccupped and shook against his leg she felt his fingers slowly begin to smooth through her locks with growing confidence. It was so strange. The sensation of his fingertips dragging almost playfully behind her ear and over the ends of her hair was very distracting. When his hand finally came to rest against her neck, his skin cooling hers, it was the most intimate touch he'd ever given her. Her breathy gasps grew quieter as she calmed, and all she could think about was how nice it felt when his thumb brushed softly against her nape like that.

She could almost clean forget about her failure to capture Sasuke when her head was in Kakashi's lap and his hand was toying with her hair. Perhaps this was why Dokko demanded to be petted so often? The gentle, repetitive strokes, however small, seemed to warm her whole body the way the heater couldn't. Pleasant little tingles radiated from his touch all the way to the tips of her toes, making her want to curl closer and go to sleep while basking in the affection only his fingers could convey. Even if he couldn't outright say that he was as fond of her as she was of him, he didn't need to when she could sense it in the simple touch of his hand cradling the back of her head.

But it only served to make her realise how starved of affection she'd become. Since her mother's death, no one had really held her, or embraced her, or run their fingers through her hair as if she was precious. How was it that Kakashi of all people had become her lifeline?

His hand moved to her shoulder? "Better?" was all he asked when her breathing finally levelled out and she was no longer shaking.

She nodded, but she didn't trust herself to lift her head. The tears may have stopped, but her face was still wet and she'd left a rather obvious snotty mark on his knee, so she didn't particularly want to stand up.

"Tissue?" he asked.

God, yes. She nodded again, and this time was forced to sit up as he stood and moved towards the backpack he'd left underneath the window.

While his back was turned, Sakura took the opportunity to shuffle closer to the bed to lean on it, making sure the shirt she'd been given wasn't riding up and the neckline wasn't gaping too far down. She supposed it shouldn't have been important. He'd already seen her naked tonight and given how deeply she'd been asleep when he'd dressed her in this shirt, he may well have made a very thorough and detailed exploration of her naked body without her knowledge.

Except she knew he hadn't. He _was _a perv, but only for fictional women.

And she supposed it was only karmic justice in a way. She'd seen him naked a few years ago after all, and not just as a passing glimpse – oh no! She'd stood with him in a cold room that day with a bright red face and a clipboard in her hand as Shizune had ordered him to open his mouth and cough and lift his hands away from his crotch so both young women could have a good hard look his personal affects. However, the significance of seeing her teacher's penis that day had been slightly undercut by the fact that there had been _forty-nine _other naked men in that same room and she'd had to examine them all with equal scrutiny. Afterwards she'd decided she never wanted to see another penis as long as she lived, but she had to admit that while Kakashi had not been the biggest… _presence _in that line-up, he was certainly well-proportioned.

She could only hope he'd thought something equally favourable about her when he'd been tugging her bra off.

Box of tissues in hand, Kakashi returned to sit back down beside her. Sakura took at least five and held the papery mass to her nose as she heartily blew and dried her eyes and refrained from mentioning that she'd already wiped most of the snot off on his sleeve. She felt marginally better, but she couldn't escape the weight of her conscience. Not when every time she closed her eyes she saw the look of betrayal spread across Sasuke's face, from the moment she'd sunk the poisoned spikes of her ring into his neck.

"Where do you think he is now?" she asked aloud, folding her knees up to her chest beneath his large shirt.

"Far from here, if he has sense," he replied, taking a sip from his can. "Be glad. It's probably better this way. The Hokage has enough on her plate without worrying about missing-nin."

Sakura stared glumly at the opposite wall.

"It might be best if we don't report what happened," he suggested idly.

It was fine by her. She wasn't exactly dying to tell Tsunade she'd engaged a powerful enemy alone and had resoundingly lost the fight. She'd already been told off by Kakashi… she didn't need her shishou adding her shrieking two cents on the matter.

"We'll stay here the night and head back in the morning," he said, though Sakura had already guessed as much. "You'll be fit enough, won't you?"

"I'm fit enough now," she said, but it was only _mostly _true. Sakura was too tired to move anywhere right now, and it took virtually all her energy to keep her head up and her eyes open. Which was probably why as the minutes rolled by, her head sank onto Kakashi's shoulder.

He didn't seem to mind. He never did. Naruto and Sasuke could come and go, but Kakashi had always been there whenever she needed someone. He'd always been the provider of kind, encouraging words when she was a child, and as she'd gotten older she'd gradually found a way past that distant figure of her mentor to engage the man behind him, the one who was amused by her jokes and teasing and was willing to talk to her as an equal.

And there had always been something more… something else just waiting for them. She'd sensed it last night with his casual little touches and his longer glances in her direction, and just now as well when he stroked her hair. It was that thing that added an extra level of discomfort to what had just taken place between her and Sasuke. She'd kissed him, and damn near thrown her life away for him because she knew _this_ was what people did when they loved someone… and yet the only person who had picked her up and put her back together was the one sitting quietly beside her now, demanding nothing from her in return.

Sakura rolled her cheek against his warm shoulder and inhaled. He stank of smoke. She hated that, but it would never quite cover his true scent; a kind of musky warmth of masculinity that she'd grown to like over the years. She inhaled deeply again and felt Kakashi turn his head slightly toward her. He knew what she was up to. "I don't smell that bad."

"Like a compost heap," she replied, rubbing her nose with her fingers as if his smell was offending her delicate sensibilities.

"If it bothers you that much, you can take off the sweater, if you like," he pointed out, cheekily, since they both knew she was totally naked underneath.

Sakura propped her chin on his shoulder and smiled at him, so close that she could see the tiny little marks on his jaw from where he'd been cut up and bruised in a million fights over the years… as well as the two day stubble that had been building up behind that mask of his. "I'll manage," she told him sweetly.

Out of curiosity she reached up to trace her finger across an old, white line that marked his throat. She'd never seen it before, but from the way it neatly bisected where his carotid artery would lie, it looked as if he'd nearly been executed at some point in the past. It was a wonder he was still around.

She noticed something else that made her frown. "You're pulse is racing," she breathed, pressing her fingers down on that old scar to feel the rapid thump beneath his skin.

"Is it?" He sounded indifferent as he took another sip of his shochu.

She pulled her hand back, wondering if his hard pulse was a sign he was still angry with her despite the calm, passive facade. "I'm sorry I messed up…"

"Don't be too sorry," he sighed, forcing a smile for her. "It's a dangerous job. There's no such thing as a safe encounter with an enemy, and I guess it _is _pretty stupid of me to lecture you on it. Our lives are always going to be full of near-misses."

"No… I know you were only worried about me," she said. "I heard you calling my name. You sounded scared."

"Don't go imagining things," he admonished lightly, smiling. "I have a reputation to uphold."

Sakura smiled too and leaned a little closer to press her lips against his bare cheek. It was only meant to be a small peck, born from an impulsive little desire to thank him in some way for being her unflappable friend, and to apologise for worrying him even for just a moment. He turned his head towards her slightly with a curious frown, as if asking what _that_ was for. And just because it felt right to, and partly because she didn't feel like explaining herself, she leaned in again and pressed her mouth to his.

Something clattered on the floor with a wobbly clang – his can of shochu, most likely. But that was the only indication she'd taken him by surprise as his mouth was much quicker to catch on.

It wasn't like kissing Sasuke. Immediately she was struck by the strong taste of plum and alcohol from his drink, and behind that was the familiar smoky bite of his cigarettes. It wasn't a nice taste, but it was _Kakashi_, and she'd long since learned that not everything about this man was perfect, and that she wouldn't have him any other way.

There was no hesitation about him either. As she closed her eyes and moved her lips over his, delighting in how he moved with her, it occurred to her that she shouldn't have expected this. She should have expected him to politely pull away and give her some sensitive excuse to save them both from embarrassment. Something about her being knocked a little silly from her head injury, or being too tired, or him being too drunk to consent… _anything_ to explain away this little mistake on her part.

Maybe she _was_ concussed, or too tired to think, and maybe that shochu really was stronger than it looked, but neither of them hesitated. It felt too right. It felt too nice. Her lips parted and she felt the hot slide of his tongue against hers, and something in the pit of her belly warmed in response, especially when his hand curled around the back of her head. She was the one who had instigated, but she felt like she was in shock. She was kissing Kakashi. He was kissing her. She'd been kissing _Sasuke_ not too long ago. Did he know that?

Sakura pulled back from the kiss to look up into his face. It wasn't a comfortable position; she had both hands on his shoulders with her body leaning awkwardly over his lap, but she didn't dare try to pull away completely or make herself more comfortable against him. This was the make-or-break moment, she thought as she gazed up at him. Whatever he did next decided the future of their relationship, and this kiss could prove to be the start of something greater, or the point at which they turned back to salvage what they could.

A smile twitched on his lips; the self-conscious one that she loved so much. "What was that for?" he asked aloud at last.

Her own smile twitched up in response. "What do you think?" she returned.

"I'm not sure I can form an opinion without further investigation," he told her. That welcome heat she'd seen in his gaze last night was back. She was glad to know she hadn't been mistaken, and now she was beginning to feel true contentment – the kind only felt when everything finally slotted into its natural place.

Sakura smiled again as her fingers flexed over the powerful muscles of his shoulders that she could feel so clearly through the tight material of his vest, muscles she'd always admired but only now felt the right to explore. "Would you like to do it again?" she asked shyly.

Kakashi's mouth caught hers against and all she could taste was plum and smoke and _him_ and all she could think of was what a _revelation_ this was. If she'd known it would feel this good to kiss Kakashi, she would have done it years ago.

But her spine was aching from her clumsy position, and without warning she pulled herself into his lap. It made sense to her, at least. Kakashi paused to look down at the exposed legs draped over his in surprise, yet his hesitation only lasted a moment before he tentatively placed a hand on each thigh and returned his attention to her kiss.

She hummed pleasurably against him, enjoying the soft, playful feel of his lips. Every slide of his tongue and nip of his teeth against her lips made her warm inside and out. It was good, but she was impatient for something more, even while she was slightly leery of her own reaction. Instinct was driving her, making her run her fingers through his short, coarse hair, _making_ her press her chest close to his and moan encouragingly when his hands grew steadily more confident and restless in their exploration.

It was her first kiss of this kind, but Sakura had always been a fast learner. Whether it was wall-walking or target practise, some things her body already knew exactly how to do, and she threw her heart into it, exploring his mouth without hesitation and intuitively matching every move he made. She heard him groan, deep in his chest. It was a low, primitive sound, easily missed as his mouth covered hers again, but it did strange things to her belly.

"You taste so good, Sakura," he murmured against her lips.

"You taste like an ashtray," she told him truthfully as his fingers splayed over her covered hip. When his lips found her throat, it was a whole new level of pleasure. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, enjoying the strange juxtaposition of his hot lips sliding across her skin and the scratch of his stubble. She was perfectly happy to stop here and just bask in the pleasure of tonight's discovery.

He worked his way lower as Sakura threaded her fingers though his hair. The neckline of his sweater wasn't very giving, even on her, and she figured there was only so far his mouth could travel. He paused to kiss her half exposed collar bone and slide his tongue along her clavicle, but then there was nothing but fabric. She expected him to return to her mouth…

But he just kept going.

The second his mouth closed over her clothed breast, she gasped in surprise. Heat and dampness leeched through the fabric, and his teeth scraped just hard enough to pinch an erect nipple. Her back jumped into an arch as another shaky gasp worked its way out her mouth.

This was way more than she'd expected. But everything he did felt _so good!_

Shivers ran through her body, hot and cold, creating a kind of restlessness she couldn't temper. Her head rolled back and her eyes squeezed shut; her legs twisted as her feet pushed against the matted floor. Then that hand resting so innocently on her hip moved, and before she knew what he was planning, he'd slid his fingers between her thighs.

"W-Wait!" she cried, lurching up as she tried to grab for his wrist. But his fingers were already cupping her, pressing in rhythmic strokes through her dripping cleft.

It was humiliating. It was also the most sudden and uncontrollable pleasure Sakura had ever experienced, and her head fell forward against his shoulder as her body shuddered and rolled with each stroke. She'd touched herself enough times to know her body needed careful coaxing. Kakashi only had to press a single finger to her clit and she was already shaking in raw, naked need. A soft, trembling cry esaped her lips, and his name was probably mixed in there somewhere too. She hadn't expected things to go this far this quickly, but now they were happening she didn't want him to stop. She didn't want those powerful ripples of pure physical pleasure to ever stop.

But Kakashi did stop, and very suddenly. His hand buried in her hair and the other roamed her back deliberately, pulling her against him as if he could absorb her. How was it possible to be this close? With her face pressed against his shoulder, his breath on her ear and his arms wound tightly around her, Sakura was overwhelmed. But she didn't think she disliked it. Not even remotely. Not when the thing that overwhelmed her the most was her own reaction to him.

"What is it?" she whispered, almost swooning as a thousand kinds of pleasure tingled through her body. He was only embracing her, albeit tightly, but the heaving of his chest and the fuzziness of her own head made it an intense communication of one kind or another.

"I'll apologise tomorrow," he said, nipping and kissing below her ear. "Just give me this now while it makes sense."

"This makes sense?" she joked weakly. A moment ago they'd been respectively miserable and angry, caught up in the wake of a difficult encounter with Sasuke. Now he was doing things to her body which did things to her knees, and it would undoubtedly do dreadful things to her heart later, but the power and promise of such immediate pleasure was too much to see past.

"Just this once," he cajoled. "Please."

"Ok," she sighed uncertainly, as his mouth slid across hers again briefly. "But…" But _what_ was just this once?

She started to get a pretty good idea when he pulled her against him again to press hard, urgent kisses to her mouth and jaw. His callused fingers dragged along her bare thighs until they were cupping her naked behind, squeezing hard enough to make her gasp. Half of her was still at a loss of what was going on, but the other recognised the situation exactly and could hardly contain her excitement. No one had ever touched her like this, or kissed her like this. No one had ever made her _want_ to be touched and kissed this way.

The fact that it was Kakashi only added to the bewildering thrill.

But then a momentary flicker of guilt almost distracted her, when she remembered she was supposed to love Sasuke unconditionally and want this kind of thing with him only. Then Kakashi's hand slipped up the sweater to touch her unprotected breasts and she knew the guilt was because she just didn't care. She hadn't really cared about any other man since some day long ago when Kakashi had recognised her as an adult and started treating her as such.

What if this was just a natural progression, perhaps only possible courtesy of a little shochu on his part and a little emotional instability on hers? This was inevitable. It gave her the courage to tug at his belt and arch her hips into him to feel that heavy, unfamiliar weight of his arousal that both shocked and excited her. He was cupping her breast again, and she was fast losing her shyness completely now. She wanted him to see her breasts, and hold them, and kiss their aching tips. She stroked his coarse pale hair restlessly as he lavished attention of her, sighing and hissing when his teeth scraped mercilessly against her sensitive nipples. "Not so hard," she complained. He ignored her and bit her again, harder, so that a strange heat jumped between her legs.

This was what they called madness, she thought, when he got impatient and pulled her down onto the make-shift bed beside the heater till she was lying beneath him. It had to be madness, because neither of them were stopping. Brilliant, wonderful, pleasurable madness. Sanity was so pale and miserable by comparison. _This _was what life should be like – fewer cares and more uninhibited touching.

Kakashi paused his attentions to look down at her. Soft pants broke from both their lips, and she could feel the hard pressure of his erection against her thigh. She shifted her hips restlessly, loving the power in him that was all her own. As fast as it had been going, suddenly everything slowed to a near standstill.

"Sakura," he began, "if you found I'd done something terrible, you'd forgive me, wouldn't you?"

Confused by the question, Sakura frowned. She reached up and touched his face and felt hot, damp skin. "Yes, always," she whispered, because she couldn't think of anything Kakashi could do that was so terrible he couldn't be forgiven. But why did he ask now? Did he think this was wrong? That this was the terrible thing he was doing? "I want this," she said. "Please…"

"I have to tell you..."

If he had something to tell her, he was taking too long. Sakura wasn't willing to wait while he hedged and stalled and the rush of excitement running through her veins faded with neglect. "It can wait," she promised. "I'll always forgive you."

It must have been the right thing to say, because immediately his mouth reclaimed her lips. His tongue tapped and flicked at hers, distracting her while his fingers stroked down her arms – her throat - her sides – her hips – anywhere he could touch. He surrounded her completely. It only took one shift of her hips in order to let his weight fall more comfortably between her thighs, and suddenly that hardness was right where she wanted it.

Sakura broke the kiss with a gasp and arched her back up, desperate to feel his every contour against hers. She felt sexy, and beautiful, and desirable, especially when he looked down at her with that glazed expression as he stroked the rough pads of his fingers over her cheek. She began to roll her hips slightly, dying to feel that thick length without the restriction of his clothes. His eyes slid shut and a grimace crossed his face as he savoured her small, slow movements. Emboldened, Sakura locked her ankles against the small of his back and began rocking harder into him until he groaned and moved with her. It was delicious. She could feel the shivers of base satisfaction at the primitive rubbing. But it wasn't enough, and it was doing more to drive them both crazy rather than sate them. Sakura angled her hips up and shuddered as a sudden, heady wave of pleasure rocked her so deeply her rhythm faltered.

Kakashi fell on her, breathing hard, touching and kissing and biting until little uncontrolled sounds broke from her throat under the onslaught of such sudden, ruthless intimacy. One touch merged swiftly with the next, becoming sweeter and more intimate until it was a blur of kisses and sighs and sweat and slick flesh.

Her only warning of when it happened was the sound of his zipper. Then the hot, blunt tip of his penis was sliding against her wet folds, and then he was pushing inside – and still pushing. Sakura choked on a gasp and clung to him rigidly. She hadn't known there would be this much of him. He wasn't even really inside her and already it hurt like a –

"_Ah!_ You bastard..."

Other virgins would have wept virtuous tears of innocence. Sakura slapped him around the head and swore miserably.

Kakashi took a deep breath, as if he was struggling to control his own temper. "You didn't tell me you were a virgin," he ground out.

"I thought it was obvious!" she snapped back. He shifted his weight slightly, causing a fresh wave of pain to break. Her hands grabbed his shoulders. "No – don't move! It hurts."

He sighed. "Do you want to stop?"

Sakura fell silent and averted her gaze. She almost wanted to agree, but cynically she knew this had to be gotten over with at some point, and there was no way the night could end like this. She didn't want to stop. She just didn't want it to hurt either.

"Then I'm going to move now," he warned after a moment, taking her silence as permission.

"Just give me a minute," she told him quickly, grimacing when even the smallest push of his hips agitated her tender flesh. "When I say don't move, _don't move. _You're not very good at this, are you?"

"Gimme a break," he whispered back. "You're my first virgin."

"Then this must be very special for you," she retorted sarcastically, but immediately wanted to bite her tongue. She was taking it out on him, even though it wasn't really him she was angry at. The pain didn't bother her so much either. It was the fact that her perfect first time was… not really living up to expectations, and it was her own body that was the problem.

But Kakashi always knew when her anger wasn't personal. With his face pressed into the crook of her neck, he held himself still as his breath fanned across her shoulder. "Just relax," he told her. "Don't think about the pain."

She made a conscious effort to follow his advice, trying to relax around the uncomfortable intrusion of his body. As long as he remained still, the pain began to ebb away and what was left behind was a full, stretched sensation that was neither painful nor pleasurable.

"Ok," she said, at last, noticing the slight tremor in his arms the longer he held himself back. "Ok, I think… you can go now."

He made a faint sound like a groan, but didn't move. "I don't think I can stop again," he warned. "Are you protected?"

Protected…? "Oh. Yeah," she whispered, too distracted by more immediate concerns to really care about the question. She folded her arms more tightly around his neck and made one last effort to relax. "I'm ready."

It was far from smooth. It stung horribly as he pushed all the way into her, and she was too tight and tense that the first few times he drew back he slipped right out and had to repeat the fight to penetrate her again. And she didn't know how to move with him when he pressed her down so tightly against the bedroll, or keep up with his fast, almost selfish rhythm. She absorbed his thrusts, but it felt so strange. The tender pain had cleared some of the mindless haze from before, leaving her uncomfortably aware of what was going on here in this room, and what might have been going on back in the village, and what people like Naruto might think if they knew she and Kakashi were in a tight, carnal embrace on the floor of a dusty old motel room. But even thoughts of distant friends couldn't stop the incorrigible pleasure rising with every slide of his flesh into hers.

This wasn't like she'd imagined sex to be. This was awkward and painful and fumbling and sweaty; only the primitive gratification made any of it seem worth it, because otherwise Sakura wondered if she'd _ever_ want to do this again. She half wished they had stopped while they were only kissing.

And already Kakashi's thrusts were growing shorter and jerkier, and harder groans were smothered into the pillow by her ear. He was going to come. She could feel the restraint in him coming undone as his hips ground against hers... and it excited her. When his grip turned tight and his body shoved against hers it was the feeling of his hot, spurting release inside her that shocked her into climax. Out of habit she bit her lip, swallowing her own groans as their bodies shuddered and strained together; fingers clutching each other so desperately there would be bruises and scratches.

It was over.

They both trembled in the bewildered aftermath, still connected even as he began to soften. The frenzied madness that had gripped them had drained in the wake of orgasm, and now there was nothing but the sound of two pounding hearts thumping against each other.

Kakashi tried to get up.

"Where are you going?" she asked, gripping him tighter.

"I need a cigarette."

"You're joking," she deadpanned, not at all happy that his first thought had been for his slimmer, more cancerous love. He even had the nerve to look at her and sigh as if _she_ was being unreasonable.

"Fine," he grunted, and gave up to settle down instead. Sakura accepted him back with an arm around his neck, but she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling. Wasn't this the part where lovers were supposed to feel contented and tired, but deeply connected on all sorts of physical and emotional levels?

Well… she was _tired _at least.

But now Kakashi was in danger of falling asleep. His breathing was beginning to level out against her throat, which would be annoying, since this position wasn't all that comfortable. He wasn't really undressed and the edge of his belt was cutting into her hip.

Was this really what it was like? Even if it hadn't been too painful, there was no getting around how short and abrupt this encounter had been. What a joke… they'd been talking about regrets yesterday and here she was, adding another to the list. Perhaps she shouldn't have let him… perhaps under other circumstances this wouldn't have felt so damn disappointing?

A tiny sigh worked its way out of her lungs before she could stop it. Kakashi stirred against her, as if sensing it. "Something wrong?" he grunted sleepily.

"Nothing," she said. She'd sooner die than tell him. She could _teasingly_ take his ego apart, but she could never seriously tell him she felt like crying.

"Sasuke?" he guessed

She'd clean forgotten about him. "Sort of," she said vaguely, "but you're pretty good at making a girl forget she let an S-class missing-nin get away."

Kakashi's breathing paused, then changed. "It wasn't your fault," he said quietly, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at her in consternation. "You didn't let him get away."

"Well, I don't see him around here, do you?" she joked lamely. "Unless you're hiding him somewhere."

Kakashi looked away.

Holy shit – Sakura peered around the room and under the bed, just in case there was a Sasuke-shaped bundle lying around somewhere that she had yet to notice. But that was absurd. Yet why did Kakashi look so guilty all of a sudden. "What is it?" she asked, frowning.

"You got him after all," he said heavily. "When I arrived, you were unconscious in the river… and he was unconscious on the bank."

Sakura stared at him. Was she hearing this right? "But you said he got away…"

"He did," he agreed. "After I woke him up and made him leave."

"You made him leave," she repeated flatly. "After I risked my life to neutralize him."

He said nothing, so she knew she'd aptly summed up the order of events. All she had left to ask was, "Why?" When he still said nothing, she began to push against his shoulders. "Get off me – get the fuck off me right now and tell me!"

He was remarkably hard to budge. "I had to choose between saving you and taking him in," he replied. "I happened to choose-"

"Don't give me that," she interrupted. "Those weren't mutually exclusive choices. You let him go – _why_ did you let him go?"

"He's a lunatic. Konoha's better off without him," he said defensively. "Sai's fitting in nicely. Why uproot everything by bringing in a maniac who would only hate you for it?"

"What about him?" Sakura pointed out. "What about what's better for him? He's all alone and now he's blind. How could you in good conscience send him away? He's your student!"

He gave her a dull look. "You really care about him, don't you?"

"Of course, I do," she said, as if it was obvious. The real question was, why didn't _he _care?

Kakashi sighed and rolled away onto his back to begin zipping up his fly and refastening his belt. "Of course you do," he mumbled, his tone unusually curt.

Sakura sat up, instinctively reaching for the blanket to pull over herself. If she thought about it, it seemed stupid to try and preserve her modesty after what they'd done, but Kakashi's abrupt withdrawal and fastening of his clothes left her with the impression that the familiarity was over. As she tried to grapple with the snubbed sensation, she also tried to wrap her head around what he'd done. "You're my partner," she said. "I risked my life to subdue Sasuke, and the least I could expect from you is to back me up! Not undo my work!"

"I told you. Bringing Sasuke back now will be more trouble than its worth," he said flatly.

"Why are you being so vague?" she demanded. "You let him go because you couldn't be bothered? Is that really it?"

His only response was to reach for the pouch hooked over his belt to withdraw a cigarette. She watched in mounting frustration as he lit it, took a deep drag, then let his hand fall to his side. No one did passive aggressive like Hatake Kakashi.

It was also the first time she'd ever actually seen him put a cigarette to his mouth. She'd seen the stubs on the ground and smelt the stink in his clothes, but she'd never seen him take a drag. Just looking at him made her feel uncomfortable. She felt as weird as the first time she'd seen his face, recognizing something new about her sensei that she knew she would have to learn to cope with.

"Did you do it because you were jealous? Because I kissed him?" she asked quietly.

He slanted her a sideways look. "You certainly have a high opinion of yourself."

Alright, she didn't really think he'd have done anything so petty out of jealousy, but his rebuke hurt. He made it sound like she wasn't important to him in the slightest. Had she gotten it all wrong again? Had she fooled herself into thinking he cared about her even half as much as she cared about him? This was a man much older than herself… and too late she wondered if what he expected out of a relationship was something totally different from her own expectations.

Her eyes landed on the box of tissues at the side of the bed and she reached over lethargically to tug out a handful and begin tentatively wiping away the mixture of sticky fluids from between her thighs. Sweat, semen, her own fluids, and some of her own blood.

There was more spots of blood on the sheets, but that was something the hotel staff would have to deal with. Sakura was instead too busy trying to wrap the blanket around her body in order to stand and reach for her clothes.

"They're not dry," Kakashi pointed out.

Sakura didn't care. "I can't go out naked," she pointed out shortly.

He sat up to scowl at her. "Go out where?"

"Anywhere!" she snapped, pulling her damp panties from the line to begin struggling into them whilst simultaneously holding up the blanket. "If you think I'm going to sleep here with you stinking up the place with that stupid cigarette-"

"I'll open the window," he said quickly.

"It's not about the stupid cigarette!" she shouted, whirling on him and all but using her bra as a whip on his arm. "How could you do that?! How could you… how could you go behind my back and do something like that and then tell me _now_?"

His mouth had always had a stronger natural down-curve than most, but right now it was more pronounced than ever. "I didn't want to lie to you," he said. "But maybe you'd prefer I did…?"

Of course she wished he'd lied, at least for a little bit longer, but intellectually honest people like Sakura didn't like to admit as much. Her mother had always taught her never to hide her eyes from unpleasant truths, but there were times and places for revealing you were an asshole, and that was _before _you had sex. It definitely wasn't after. "We're not allowed to search for him anymore," she began in a low, angry voice. "So what are the chances we'll ever cross paths with him again like we did today? Trust you to throw away possibly the last opportunity we'll ever have!"

Kakashi rolled upright, cigarette dangling from his lips. "You'd be surprised. If he continues to deliberately mix with enemies of Konoha, opportunities to make out with him may present themselves with surprising frequency."

Sakura glared at him, her body quivering with anger and hurt. "You know," she said quietly, "sometimes you can be a real bastard."

He closed his eyes and dropped his head, as if regretting his choice of words. "I don't want to fight with you, Sakura," he sighed. "I just want you to understand that in the current climate, we're under orders to abandon the search for Sasuke. Our efforts right now should be dedicated only to stopping the war and the syndicate."

"Sasuke knew about the syndicate," Sakura pointed out. "That alone was reason enough to bring him in."

"Everyone knows about the syndicate, Sakura. But usually what they know is limited or just plain wrong."

"Not, Sasuke," she replied staunchly. "If you really heard our conversation then you know as well as I do that he knew about our mission. He knows more about the syndicate than Konoha does, and we could have used that information. Yet you still let him go!"

The stare Kakashi levelled at her was nothing short of uncomfortable. Sakura felt a prickle of unease radiate along her spine… a familiar feeling only when she was facing off against a clever, uncanny enemy. "I think we should just drop this, Sakura, before we fall out," he said coldly.

It was a little too late for that, but Sakura swallowed hard and turned away from him. Something like cold sweat was breaking out over her skin, sudden and inexplicable, and all in response to that intense stare he'd given her. An instinct of self-preservation warned her to stop pushing him _right now_, or something would happen. She didn't know what or why or how, but her hand still shook as it reached for her shorts.

Kakashi was suddenly standing at her side. "Don't go," he said softly, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Stay here."

His gentle tone was back, but Sakura couldn't forget the way he'd just looked at her. She remained frozen in place, torn between the order to obey and the desire to rip his hand off.

"I don't want to fight, Sakura," he said again, leaning to bring his face closer to hers. She could see he was trying to tame her with a kiss.

Sakura jerked her head to the side, unable to bear the thought of his mouth against hers. She still couldn't understand exactly what had passed between them a moment ago, but it frightened the shit out of her whatever it was. You didn't look at someone like that… not after making love. That was the way you looked at someone when they were on the opposite side in a battlefield.

Kakashi withdrew with a step back and his hand dropped. But it wasn't just that he'd retreated physically. Whatever warmth and affection he'd allowed her to see tonight was being shut away again, and Sakura somehow understood that it was over. He'd never reach out to her the same way again. "If you don't want to sleep in the same room, I'll go," he said heavily.

She tried to agree and say, "_I think that's best,"_ but her throat locked up. All she could do was stare in impotent rage at the wall as Kakashi sighed once more and scooped up his backpack from the floor. He didn't look back as he walked out the door, and only when the door was shut and she heard his footsteps retreating down the corridor did she finally sink back down onto her bedroll and turn her face towards the heater.

What was she supposed to do now?

The only thing she could do was huddle under the covers and listen to the wind howl against the window while a dull ache throbbed between her legs. She could ease it with her chakra if she wanted to, but she didn't. Sometimes pain was a blessing, serving as a reminder to mistakes that should never be forgotten.

She washed and dressed wearily the next morning, and rolled her shoulders in a poor attempt to find courage and composure before gathering her things and leaving the room. Kakashi was waiting for her on the street outside, standing beneath the shade of a brittle looking tree. As she approached he nodded.

"Let's go," he said hoarsely.

It was like nothing had occurred between them at all.

They left the town in silence, walking in single file through the crowded alleys, but even when they came to wider roads where they could walk side by side, they remained mute. On an ordinary day they would be chatting by now. She would have pointed out that strange rock formation they passed which looked conspicuously like a rabbit, and he would counter saying there was a word for people who saw patterns in randomness. 'Pareidoliacs?', she'd suggest, and then he'd reply with something like, 'Dorks."

But now Sakura didn't have the courage to make small talk. There were bigger issues between them now than amusingly shaped rocks. Fear gripped her heart. Was this how it was going to be from now on?

"Kakashi-sensei-" she began suddenly.

"Don't call me that," he interrupted, rather gruffly. "It doesn't really seem appropriate now, does it?"

"But about last night…"

He drew to a sudden stop beside her and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Sakura, we're both adults," he said apprehensively. "You know how it goes."

Sakura looked up at him with a blank face. His hangover was obvious. He'd had more to drink than that shochu last night after he'd left, and now he stood like a man whose shoulders were hunched against a cold wind, or innumerable other kinds of unpleasantness. It was very obvious that he didn't want to talk about this particular subject at all. He'd probably rather discuss the beauty of Naka's romance than discuss the fact they'd taken an enormous step in their relationship last night - in the wrong direction.

She sighed. "Forget it," she told him. "It doesn't matter."

They continued on their way in silence once more, and suddenly the pair that could talk endlessly about nothing at all couldn't think of a single word to say to each other.

* * *

Time had blunted her memories of that night, but she'd never quite forgotten the memory of the anger and the hurt she'd been left with. Over the passing weeks and months the picture had been blurring. She didn't remember what his kiss had felt like. She certainly didn't recall much of the preceding fight with Sasuke that had led to such a charged outpouring of emotion between her and Kakashi… in more than one way. If she hadn't bumped into him that day, she never would have wound up Kakashi's arms that night, and she wouldn't have been left so reeling by his admission that he'd let Sasuke go.

It wasn't until Sasuke had shown himself again and forced her to remember that night that she realised what she'd missed. Not only had Kakashi's attachment to the Syndicate sabotaged their mission, but it had sabotaged their relationship too. He'd let Sasuke walk - not out of jealousy, or of concern for Sai, or even for Konoha's resources - but because he couldn't afford to apprehend someone who knew about the Hatake clan.

She'd avoided Kakashi for weeks without ever truly understanding why. But even if she hadn't recognised his betrayal on a conscious level, the cold look he'd given her after such intense intimacy had devastated her enough to recognise it on _some_ level.

As Sasuke had said… their teacher was a more selfish, ruthless man than ever they'd realised.

"Ah… there he goes," Aki sighed wistfully.

Sakura redirected her gaze over the balcony's rail to look down at the courtyard below. Two figures were emerging from the entrance of the main house – one monk and one mercenary. At the foot of the steps they both paused and seemed to trade a final few words before waving farewell. As the monk turned, Sakura could almost have sworn that his face turned up and his blank, unseeing eyes wandered over the balcony where she stood with Aki and Kaoru.

"Good riddance," Kaoru whispered. "He's creepy."

"But handsome," Aki said, as if this was all that mattered.

Sakura didn't voice her opinion. She watched Sasuke walk away with contradictory feelings, part gladness and bitterness that the one person who _could_ help was just another man who wouldn't.

At the same time, she ran her fingers restlessly over the two scrolls that lay hidden in the folds of her sleeves. When Sasuke finally passed out of sight, she turned her eyes automatically back to the entrance of the house, expecting Karasu to have gone back inside.

He hadn't. Karasu was still standing on the steps, looking at her as she looked at him, and for a heart stopping moment when their eyes met, he smiled.

* * *

Next Chapter: _An Opportunity for Scandal_


	23. An Opportunity for Scandal

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Two: An Opportunity for Scandal

* * *

_Cold, cold water surrounds me now,_

_  
And all I've got is your hand._

* * *

It had not been a good month, Sakura thought, as she lay upon her bed and toyed with two very different scrolls above her head. She was still here, for a start, and by now she was running out of ideas.

At first when she'd found out about the monthly trips to Amegakure that some of the servants joined occasionally in order to spend their wages, she'd thought it was her very chance. Kaoru was going – all she needed to do was tag along under the pretence of wanting to spend what little allowance she had accumulated so far, and once in Ame disappear down an alley, never to be seen from again.

This plan, however, had been pre-emptively crushed after Yui had overheard Sakura was planning to go on the trip. Not long after that, Aki had approached her apologetically to explain that the Zuru family had decided she could not leave on this trip; they were worried she would use the opportunity to run away. They were right, of course, for all the wrong reasons, and Sakura had been left to fume alone much to Yui's obvious enjoyment.

But the opportunity of contacting Konoha was still there, and on the morning Kaoru prepared to leave, Sakura had asked her if she would post a letter for her while in Ame.

"Sure, but I'll need three ryo," Kaoru said blithely.

"To send a letter?" Sakura asked. "That's a bit steep."

"It's expensive because it's such a pain in the ass to send them," Kaoru sighed. "First they have to _open_ the letter, then they have to _read_ the letter, and if you're sending it abroad you have to explain in intimate detail _who _you're contacting and _why,_ and if you want to send it to an enemy country like the Fire country you can forget it; they'd just arrest me. Three ryo please!"

Sakura took back her letter and threw it in the kitchen stove.

After another week of virtually no news she'd given up and simply attempted to pack a bag and walk out. The first time she'd tried this she'd failed miserably when Pakkun had appeared.

"Don't be a fool, Sakura," he warned.

But he was barely bigger than a rabbit, and so she'd strode past him without a word into the forest. Not ten seconds later, Bull had appeared. He was a dog not that unlike Pakkun in appearance, save for the fact he was about thirty times the size. He'd rather gently but firmly taken hold of her sleeve by his teeth and dragged her back to the porch outside her bedroom and both dogs had sat there and waited until she went back inside.

The second time she attempted the same tactic, she put in a request to one of the cooks for a very special kind of biscuit; and as she'd explained the recipe to the woman, the cook's face had grown steadily more incredulous and a little green besides. But it was well known that pregnant women had their weird cravings, and so she'd gone ahead and cooked some short bread biscuits, roasted in the fat of local rabbits.

Sakura had given them to Pakkun, coated with a strong dose of Lady Zuru's sleeping draft, and told him they were cat flavoured. He'd taken them happily, apparently pleased that they were allies again.

The moment he was fast asleep, Sakura once again headed out into the forest with her backpack. But she only got a quarter of a mile from the estate before she realised her mistake… when three members of the Hatake clan caught up with her.

"What's with the little mouse sneaking away?" One dark-haired man asked, stepping in front of her. "Big pack for a small mouse."

"Ah, it's the pregnant one." Another said, probably not recognising her personally as much as he recognised her girth.

"Huh?" said the other.

"You know. The heir's little slut."

"Oh, yeah. She's probably running away because she knows they'll kill her once its born. Poor thing. What shall we do with her?"

The two dark men looked at each other. "I don't suppose anyone knows she's here." "She won't be missed until morning at least." "It wouldn't fall on us if she never turns up again." "Does it matter if she dies a little sooner rather than later?"

Sakura had inhaled rather strongly and stepped backwards, knowing she couldn't outrun or defend herself against two shinobi in this state, but she would sure as hell die trying. But as she'd stepped back, she'd bumped straight into the chest of a third man. Turning sharply, she had notice his pale hair and even paler eyes.

"Stop messing around," he told the other two in a flat, uncaring voice. "Take her back to the house."

Whether or not this man had actually saved her life or if the other two men had just been teasing her, Sakura didn't think she could risk leaving in the same way again. She had to get used to the fact that the state she was in now had left her extremely vulnerable. Perhaps a few months ago she might have been able to fend off all three men without a moment of fear or hesitation, but right then at that moment she had been completely at their mercy.

No more drugged dog biscuits.

Her last resort, it seemed, was now clasped in her hand in the form of a scroll – the one Sasuke had given her. He'd left the estate two days after he'd arrived, money in pocket and keen to make tracks before Karasu or anyone else discovered any inaccuracies in what he'd given them. But before he'd left he'd called her to his room once more and pressed this round tube of paper into her hand.

"I won't help Konoha," he'd said. "But if ever you find your life threatened and you need help, use this scroll. It contains a summoning jutsu that will be activated the moment you open it. Wherever I am, it'll call me to you."

Sakura had thrown it into her pocket with Kakashi's scroll, and now she lay wondering which of the men she would trust if it ever came to such a situation when she would need help. Would she call on an infamous traitor to the village who ate coasters and mistook milk for tea? Or would she rely on the scroll given to her by a not-so infamous-as-yet traitor who had unfortunately impregnated her?

It was clear she could trust neither. And yet, Kakashi had never harmed her physically. If she ever got desperate enough to put her life in someone's hands, she had to admit they would still be Kakashi's. But if she relied on him, she might never be free until it was too late.

As of now, she was reluctant to make a move. The lack of common news of Konoha reassured her at least. If the title of Hokage had changed hands, she was sure that word would have reached even this place within a short time, so she at least took that to mean Kakashi had so far failed to succeed Tsunade. For that she was grateful, but the longer he was gone, the more she worried. He was over there right now, probably sabotaging missions and plotting the village's downfall from within, gathering top secret information on the position and strategies of deployed troops.

She looked at the scroll he had given her and wondered what it contained. Was it a summoning scroll like Sasuke's? If she opened it, would Kakashi appear before her? Could she pull him out of Konoha in a split second and remove the spy from his work? Might she summon him when he was in the _middle of his shower_?

It was tempting to open it and see what happened, but Sakura knew she didn't quite dare. Whether this was a summoning jutsu or something else, it would only work once, and she didn't want to waste it in some short-sighted attempt at pissing off Kakashi.

The alarm clocked at the side of the dorm beeped and Sakura glanced over. Her break was up, and she needed to get back to work. Sakura stood carefully, definitely beginning to lack the grace she'd once had. Every day it was getting harder to ignore the _presence_ of this thing inside her when suddenly she was finding that her innate flexibility she'd always had was disappearing on her, and now she couldn't sleep in certain positions, or bend down in certain ways, and even struggled a little to stand when sitting on the deep couch of the 'on-call' room.

Her bust may have expanded, but the effect was somewhat lost now that her stomach stuck out even further. The yukata she wore had so far been awfully good at hiding the weight, but now it had just grown uncomfortable enough that she'd exchanged her belt for a softer sash. Her condition was now the first thing people noticed when they met her. Where before eyes had always started on her face and then slid down to her stomach, now the eyes were helplessly drawn to her stomach first. Who could blame them? It _was_ usually the first part of her to enter a room.

Sakura toddled easily down to the undercroft and sought out her schedule as written on the board, just in case there had been any changes. As she ran her finger down from her name she realised it was lucky she'd looked – her next duty which _had_ been to tidy the twins' room had been rubbed out and replaced with 'sweep onsen'.

With a faint groan of irritation, Sakura set off across the gardens for the onsen. She hated sweeping the place. The place was always full of steam and sweat and sometimes naked men. Sakura's nausea may have been waning these last couple of weeks, but the thick smells and the hot, damp air inside the onsen always made her feel sick and light-headed. One of these days she'd collapse into one of the pools and that would be the end of her.

When she entered the building, she checked for shoes and found none. That usually meant no one was inside and she was free to sweep and bleach to her heart's content. Sakura grabbed a bucket and a brush from the cleaning closet and stumped off towards the changing room to hunt for used and abandoned towels. There were always at least a dozen. She picked them up and piled them one by one, sighing every time she bent down.

It was as she was collecting her sixth towel that a faint noise made her pause in her work. She turned towards the screen doors leading into the onsen, swearing that she'd heard what sounded like a faint voice on the other side. Then she spotted the heap of clothes on the bench beside the door, and the _two_ pairs of shoes tucked underneath. A man and a woman's.

_Oh, how naughty,_ she though cattily, as she tiptoed a little closer to the onsen doors and listened intently. Yes, those were definitely low moans she heard; a man by the sound of it, and the gasping little cries echoing them were feminine.

Who could she blackmail and torment? she wondered. The hierarchy of staff in this place was a cutthroat kind of world… uncovering each other's scandals and dangling them over each other's heads was a marvellous way to elevate your status – or just force someone into covering your shifts for a while. Knowing this, Sakura silently pushed back the door an inch to peek though.

At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at. Too many pale legs and arms were entangled in a heap on one of the mats beside the onsen bath. A flash of pink made Sakura frown. Was that… was that Yui?

With Toshio of course.

Instantly Sakura regretted opening the door. Now she just felt nauseous, as if morning sickness had finally returned with a vengeance. She was also forced to realise that while she had quite obviously had sex herself (something she could no longer kid anyone about even if they lacked Ino's amazing powers of deduction) she'd never actually seen it. Porn, she had discovered about four months ago, was not very true to real life. And as she looked out upon the heaving, gasping bodies of two people she absolutely despised, she also realised the whole thing looked rather stupid and ridiculous.

Then Yui's head suddenly lifted, as if sensing she was being watched, and the moment her gaze found Sakura's a horrible smirk spread over her flushed face.

Now Sakura knew who had modified her schedule in the undercroft. Yui had meant for her to come here, and meant for her to see this. But why? Did she think Sakura gave a shit about Toshio? For all intents and purposes she was supposed to be carrying the man's child, but even if that was true, Sakura doubted anyone would be so blind as to think for a second that Sakura cared about him. If she hoped to make Sakura jealous, she'd failed miserably. If her plan had been to make Sakura lose her lunch, well, that might have been a resounding success.

With a hiss of disgust, Sakura stormed away from the doors, dropping her brush and bucket as she went. This wasn't her job, she wasn't going to waste time here. Most likely her real job of tidying the twin's room was being neglected, and besides scaring ten years off Sakura's life with this stunt, perhaps Yui also hoped to get her into trouble? In that case she had to hurry.

But as Sakura hurried back across the gardens, she couldn't ignore the tiny hot prickle that started along her hip. She put a hand against the afflicted area, well aware that the only thing underneath her clothes there was a certain little tattoo she'd been given. After a moment, the discomfort faded, leaving Sakura to wonder what on earth it meant.

Of course, she had a very good idea… one she didn't like at all.

* * *

A pair of maids yelped and dove for cover the moment Kakashi stormed around the corner. He supposed they weren't to blame, as he didn't provide a very reassuring sight at first glance – not with the limp and the dried blood streaked through his hair. He probably looked as if he was searching for his next victim… and in a way, he was.

Without knocking or announcing his presence, Kakashi threw open the door of Karasu's chambers and strode through the joining rooms, not at all caring that he was leaving slightly bloody imprints of his shoes upon the immaculate floor. The man he searched for was stretched out upon the porch, watching the sunny lake while sucking on a long pipe. As Kakashi approached, he had to curb the desire to kick him in the kidneys.

Karasu didn't even have to open his eyes. "What are you doing here?" he drawled. "Shouldn't you be busy in Konoha being Hokage?"

"You went behind my back," Kakashi ground out. "You ordered a hit on the Hokage without telling me!"

"Presents are more fun when they're a surprise. It would have been better if you had no knowledge, anyway. Don't want people to link you to it." Karasu rolled onto his back. "But the fact that you're here and I've heard no word of that woman's death means someone messed up."

"Sable's dead," Kakashi told him coldly. "Your plan failed."

"You came all this way to tell me? Dedication. I like that." Karasu sat up and blew a whirl of smoke at him. "But why are you injured? They didn't discover you, did they?"

"Seems like the Rain country made a pact with the Earth country. There are Iwa nin positioned all along the border between fire and rain. I ran into an entire troop and they didn't react well to the Konoha uniform." Kakashi shifted his weight to his uninjured ankle.

"Did you explain you were with the Syndicate?"

"Of course not. I killed them all," he replied, rubbing at the crusted blood on his brow. It wasn't his own.

"Well, it's good that you left no witnesses that might have recognised you. I'd prefer Iwa to be as ignorant to our identity as Konoha," Karasu murmured thoughtfully. "Still, try not to kill too many of Iwa's people. They're on our side, you know."

"I'd think you care more about Iwa soldiers than you do about Sable," Kakashi snapped.

"If she was careless enough to get herself killed, so be it. She was only one of the branch members anyway." A rumble of thunder made the clan leader look up. "Oh. The sun's still shining and it's about to rain. I love this place."

Kakashi turned, no longer able to stand his presence any longer.

"How long are you planning to stay, Kakashi?" Karasu called after him.

It was better not to mention that he'd contrived sympathetic leave from Konoha for the sake of one displaced pregnant girl. Instead he said, "Konoha has sent its finest jonin on a mission to discover and destroy the heart of the Syndicate, which would be _you_, Karasu."

"I'll remember to sleep with one eye open," Karasu laughed. "Stay for however long you like, then. Reika will be pleased, at least."

"Sure," he replied flatly and then left the man to enjoy his sunny thunderstorm. Right now Kakashi had more important things to attend to. Things that had been on his mind since the moment he'd left this place and had haunted him every waking and sleeping hour since.

* * *

Sakura yawned as the first fat drops of rain splattered against the roof-tiles above the veranda. She would normally go inside, but rainstorms in the rain country always accompanied a surge in heat, as the humidity grew worse and often the only respite could be found in the deepest, darkest corner of the undercroft. For now, Sakura was content to sit on the wooden boards of the porch and watch the rain soak the ground a few feet away. She was too tired to move. After stuffing all the twins' toys back in their boxes and making their beds, she'd returned to her room for her well deserved break, if only because the longer she stayed on her feet, the more her back began to hurt.

Kaoru slipped into the room behind her, looking unusually pink-cheeked and cheerful, even for her. "I love the smell of rain," she said heartily, moving to flop upon her futon. "It reminds you the world is alive."

But Sakura was beginning to long for Konoha, with its long weeks of dry sunshine broken up by intermittent showers that didn't leave you feeling like a sweaty pig after they passed. Sakura fanned her face with her hand. "What are you so happy about?" she asked flatly.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Kaoru chirped, and then began humming.

Sakura scowled at her. Either Toshio had died (which would be a shame, since Sakura would have been cheated of the honour of killing him herself), or she'd been given a surprise holiday with perhaps a big pay bonus. Sakura sincerely doubted either, but perhaps it was just that time of year. The tune Kaoru was humming was a slightly off-key rendition of a traditional winter festival song. Not that winter existed here, she thought. Back home in Konoha they were probably experiencing a little frost and even a bit of snow, but here, it was almost as hot as when she'd arrived.

"Where've you been anyway?" Sakura asked. "Your break ended ages ago."

"Hm? Oh. I was helping to prep one of the overflow guestrooms," Kaoru crooned. "He's back, you know."

"What?" Sakura frowned.

"The man who saved me in the library that time," she answered with a faint blush. Sakura hoped it was because that event was a source of humiliation for her that she couldn't easily speak about, and not because of what she said next, "Hatake Kakashi, I think his name was. You know, the cute one."

If Sakura had been a more superstitious kind of girl, she would have made a sign against evil at that moment. Instead she settled for staring at Kaoru as if the other girl had said something extremely stupid. "He's back?" she repeated unhappily, even though she'd already suspected the moment the mark on her ass had begun to prickle. "You don't… like him, do you, Kaoru?" she asked hopefully.

"Oh, no, no. Heavens, no," the other girl denied with a wide embarrassed smile and an even deeper blush.

Translation: "Oh, yes, yes. GOD, YES."

Sakura observed her friend with mute grief. How could she explain to her that such a man was not as noble as he first appeared? What would Kaoru say if Sakura informed her that Kakashi was a traitor who had – no, that wouldn't work. Kaoru already knew Kakashi was off infiltrating Konoha and no doubt she approved if she, like everyone else here, considered Konoha to be the enemy. To Kaoru, Kakashi's actions were probably heroic and brave.

Well, if she _really_ needed to discourage the girl, she could always tell her the truth about who had fathered this baby. And if she was still under any illusion that there was anything left worth having about this man, Sakura could always describe how the baby had been fathered. Maybe then that scary celibate monk who had passed through here a few days ago might not seem such a bad choice of lover anymore.

But for now, Sakura could only watch the budding crush in the girl before her with despair – and it was certainly a crush. Sakura had enough personal experience to know a crush when she saw one. It was the sense of happiness you got just by thinking of that person, or seeing them even across a room. It was that motivation to comb your hair a little straighter, or brush your teeth a little more thoroughly, or shave your legs every day, and always wear matching underwear, even when you knew that person was unlikely to notice. It was that feeling of sitting on a porch drinking sake with your superior and realising that every time he looked at you for a moment too long, your heart swelled.

This was all in the past, however, for Sakura.

"I'm hungry," she suddenly declared. "I'm going to get something to eat."

"Oh – just tell me what you want and I'll get it for you!" Kaoru said eagerly, jumping to her feet. "There's no need for you to exert yourself."

Thus was the one nice thing about being pregnant; if you were expecting you were sure to find that suddenly everyone around you was very amenable to your every whim. She fancied some meat dumplings right now, and all she had to do was tell that to Kaoru and have the girl rush off. But Sakura felt too _restless_ to be sitting around and waiting for things right now. Kakashi was back and her window of opportunity to escape (which she'd been struggling to open since his departure) was now going to be thoroughly locked down. Her instinct was to keep low and keep moving to avoid detection – anything else just felt like idleness.

Then again, her back was still aching.

"I really fancy some meat dumplings right now, Kaoru," she cajoled. "If you don't mind…"

"Not at all!" Kaoru, only to eager to help, hurried towards the door. "Wait right there – I'll be back before you know it."

As the other girl slammed the door exuberantly in her wake, Sakura turned back to the rainy landscape. The instinct to keep moving may have been fudged by the fact she felt like a lump of dough, but perhaps it was better, from a more logical standpoint, that she remain hidden away here in one of the many dorm rooms of the servants' wing. It was quiet here, save for the sound of the rain hitting the canopy of the bamboo forest, but it had silenced the other noises of the birds and the insects. If she closed her eyes, it was easy to imagine she was very much alone here.

The skin of Sakura's hip tingled again. Absent-mindedly she rubbed the sore spot, trying to ignore the apprehensive feeling that accompanied the sensation every time. It was like when she'd been back home in her house, happy and content until the moment the phone rang, and suddenly all she felt was ice flushing through her veins at the thought that it _might_ be her debt collectors. Life was grand until your worries felt the need to remind you of their existence.

The door to the dorm slid open. She smiled, waiting for that delicious smell of hot dumplings to waft over to her… but it never came, and from the silence of the person now standing in the room behind her, it probably wasn't Kaoru. Aki would have announced her presence too. Yui would be storming around, flinging things noisily against the floor in a passive-aggressive sham.

Immediately Sakura began to tense up. Without turning, she began to reach for the knife hidden in her sleeve.

He recognised instantly what she was doing. "It's only me."

Only you? Was that supposed to make her feel better?

Nevertheless, as tempting as it was to brandish her knife and threaten to poke his other eye out with it, this was a jonin. With her agility at an all time low, she didn't stand a chance of making such a threat even slightly convincing. But then, she thought, as she glanced sullenly over her shoulder at him, neither was Kakashi looking like he was the pinnacle of fitness. One look at him told her that he was injured; his weight favouring one leg while the other was torn up and bloodied. There was more blood streaked through his hair and over his shoulder, but she doubted it was his own, as the fabric of his Konoha vest was unbroken. Yet just the sight of him in that vest made her want to spit. It was all a ruse. All that loyalty and all that dedication was just a lie and right now the only thing she wanted to do was go for him – cut off that vest and cut off that forehead protector – cut off that utility belt and smash his Konoha issue weapons and scrolls. And if he felt the need to carve his name onto her ass, she'd carve the word 'LIAR' into his face and see if he could show himself to Konoha again after that.

"I thought I felt a pain in the ass returning," she said limpidly. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be too busy trying to usurp the Hokage and destroy my village."

"I came back for you," he said simply.

She looked away from him in disgust. He was undoubtedly telling the truth and she believed him easily enough, yet still she somehow might have preferred it if he didn't give her a second thought and hadn't bothered to visit her at all. That would make things perfectly black and white for her, but instead he had the nerve to actually _care_ about her while simultaneously making her life hell.

"Do what you like. I don't care," she told him coldly. "I can't stop you, obviously. But don't waste time concerning yourself with me, I'm sure you have a lot of juicy village secrets to give away to Karasu."

"I didn't come here to sell secrets," he said, stepping towards her. She heard his limp. "And I passed up the title of Hokage so that I could return in order to protect you. You're my responsibility, Sakura. I won't abandon you."

Sakura said nothing, because she wished dearly that he would abandon her almost as much as she wished she could turn around and embrace him like a friend. She pinched her lower lip with her thumbnail, trying to distract herself from any possible display of emotion with the small, sharp pain.

"Sakura, stand up. Let me see you."

"You can see me fine from there," she said.

"If you need help getting up-"

"Oh, fuck off, I'm not an invalid!" she snapped, and just to prove it she surged to her feet with all the speed and grace she could muster, which was very little. The result was not speedy or graceful, but at least she succeeded in not looking like a beetle stranded on its back. She turned to face Kakashi defiantly, and immediately regretted it.

His gaze slid straight to her stomach and he almost visibly recoiled. "You're… bigger than I expected," he managed.

Now it was Sakura who recoiled, as she half tried to turn away, embarrassed to be stared at in such shock. Yes, she was fat, and she was only due to get fatter, and _yes_, it was such a horror that she'd managed to render a battle hardened jonin into a slack-jawed, wide-eyed fool. She knew that. He didn't have to demonstrate.

"Is that… normal?" he asked hesitantly.

"I don't know!" she exploded, worried and self-conscious as she turned away from him completely.

"Kurenai was never that big at four months," he pointed out, a little unhelpfully in Sakura's opinion.

"So? Women differ, don't they?" she said, though she knew she sounded more hopeful than assertive.

"Maybe it's twins?" he suggested with such devastating calm that Sakura felt a tingle of panic sweep her body from head to toe.

"Don't be stupid, it's not twins," she hissed. Was he trying to scare her? Twins was the last thing she wanted to contemplate right now when just the thought of one kid alone was proving difficult enough for her to deal with. "And you should get out of here before one of the girls returns. Kaoru will be back any minute with my dumplings."

"What's dumplings got to do with anything?" he asked, stumped.

"Everyone has their cravings," she said with a dismissive shrug. "I have mine."

He seemed to understand what she meant. "I'm sorry… I should have been there for you from the beginning. I'm supposed to be the one fetching your dumplings, huh?"

"You don't get it, do you? I want you to have nothing to do with me or this pregnancy. I want to be as far away from you as possible at all times. I never want to see your face again and I would be happy if this child was born and grew up never knowing your name." The rain was beginning to let off outside, at odds with the turbulent feelings welling up inside her. "If you want to protect me, go ahead, but you can do that from a distance. If you cared about me at all, you'd leave me in peace."

His hand touched her shoulder and Sakura found herself twisting away as if he'd touched her with a live wire. She tried to shoot him a venomous glare, but the expression on his face told her she didn't need to.

"Do you think you're the only one who's scared?" he whispered harshly. "That's my baby too, you know."

When he wasn't the one carrying the damn thing and feeling all the nausea and the discomfort and the pain and the need to get up five times a night to pee, Sakura found it hard to imagine how he had any equal right to claim parentage. Yet it was a fact she couldn't escape that it had taken two people to make this glorious mistake and perhaps Kakashi felt _a little_ of the concern she did. Sure he didn't have to worry about his figure or stretch marks or the pain of childbirth, but it was possible that becoming a father was just as much a shock as becoming a mother.

And god help her, she was too soft. She gazed into his drawn face and saw the very familiar stress of an unravelling mind written in his eye, and slowly she found herself relenting. So much so that when he reached out to touch his hand against the prominent bump of her belly, she did nothing. It felt odd. She'd let other people touch her like this – mainly the other girls and perhaps a couple of other women from other branches of the household staff who were brave enough to ask. Kaoru in particular seemed to think rubbing Sakura's tummy was a source of good luck and did it every morning with great enthusiasm. But so far, no man had touched her like this, and as the man who had given her this problem in the first place, it left her with some extremely mixed feelings. Even if one hemisphere of her brain told her to push his hand away and slap him, the other side, and possibly the most dominant side, felt curiously happy.

There was something strangely right about his hand against her stomach. That he even wanted to touch her mollified some part of her that had been terrified since the moment she realised she would have to tell him he was going to be a father. This was what real couples did, wasn't it?

But trust Kakashi to ruin it. "Take off your dress," he suddenly said.

"What? _No!"_ she yelped, taking a sudden step back out of his reach. "I always knew you were a pervert, but this really tears it!"

"I just want to feel you-"

"Feel yourself!" she snapped.

"Please, Sakura," he urged. "This pregnancy came pretty much out of the blue for me… it's hard to comprehend exactly what it all means when you're the only one experiencing it."

Sakura edged around him, keeping her distance. "You're welcome to have my back pain," she said shortly. "I'd gladly give you all my 'experiences'."

"I don't feel like I'm part of it," he explained, "so, please… I just want to see you. I just want to understand."

"What's to understand? You know all about the birds and the bees, and you can see me fine with my clothes on," she pointed out.

He ran his hand through his blood encrusted hair. "I want to see _you_, not your dress."

"To make sure I'm not wearing a cushion under this, is that it?"

"Metaphorically speaking, that seems like an accurate way to put it, yes…"

Sakura paused and considered him, though she knew she shouldn't. One stupid night four months ago did not grant him the right to make her undress in front of him, and since she had no intention of allowing this man to be the father of this child (let alone herself be its mother) there was little point in trying to include him.

And yet she could see it was important to him.

And yet… he was a traitor.

Sakura turned towards the wall and began to unfasten her sash. "Alright," she said woodenly, "but only for sixty seconds, and you're not to touch or look at anything else . This is all you're going to get, and you have to promise me you'll leave me alone after this. You have to promise to leave the baby alone too. Just because you did this to me doesn't mean you're going to be a father."

"I can't promise to leave you alone," he said behind her. "But I'll do my best as circumstances permit."

The sash dropped to the floor and Sakura stood awkwardly for a moment, holding the folds of her dress together. "And if you laugh at me-"

"I won't laugh." His low voice was perfectly serious.

Sakura still hesitated. She'd always been a little self-conscious of her body, and having a bloated pumpkin of a belly wasn't doing much to allay those fears. What if Kakashi didn't find her attractive? Why should she even care about that? She had to imagine this was more like being examined by a doctor; an impersonal encounter in which Kakashi had no interest in her body beyond the technical issues. Hopefully her level of attractiveness was totally irrelevant to him right now.

She turned slowly and crossed her arms protectively over her breasts. She was wearing a bra, of course, but it was one of Kaoru's and the girl had a fondness for gauzy, see-through cups. Her panties were at least a little more modest, though they were enormous and grey and probably contributing nothing to her sexy score.

Kakashi approached her cautiously, wisely suspecting that if he put a foot wrong she would commit violence against him. She didn't like his limp. He was clearly badly injured, and rather than being here pestering her he should have been off getting bandaged up. At least she couldn't offer to help him, even if she wanted to. But all thoughts of his injured leg slipped away as he reached out to drag apart the edges of her dress.

Unable to witness his reaction, Sakura turned her head away and stared resolutely out the shoji doors. Bamboo. Leaves. Puddles on the ground. Steam rising off the rooftops of the other buildings. Kakashi's large, hot hand touching her rounded stomach. Sakura squeezed her eyes shut and began to count to sixty. He wouldn't be getting any more seconds than they had already agreed.

"Do you still get sick?" he asked, running his fingers lightly over the taut flesh.

She answered mechanically, "It's wearing off lately." _Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-_

"You're eating enough?"

"Yes." _Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three…_

His questions were polite and perfunctory, helping to cast the illusion that this really was like an impersonal encounter with a doctor, but the way his hand stroked over her was making it difficult to keep track of the seconds. Goosebumps broke out over her arms and she hugged herself a little more tightly, trying to ignore the fact that his touch was not at all doctor-like, and closer to that of a lover. It reminded all too clearly of that night when he _had_ been her lover, if only briefly, and when he'd touched her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

Exploring fingers followed the line of her naval down, almost to her panties. Sensitive muscles fluttered in response, and immediately Sakura tried to step back. "Ok, that's enough," she said, even though she was pretty sure she'd cheated him of at least twenty seconds there. It was a matter of self-preservation; if she let him keep touching her, she ran the risk of beginning to enjoy it.

Kakashi sighed and rolled his fingers into a fist beneath his jaw as Sakura began to try and retie her yukata.

And that was exactly how Aki and Yui found them.

In her defence, Sakura hadn't heard their approach because of the dull roaring of blood in her ears. On the other hand, Kakashi should have noticed them coming, and the reason why he made no move to warn her quickly became apparent a few seconds after the two girls drew open the door and walked in.

No one moved. Sakura's hands froze in the process of pulling together the folds of her yukata, though her state of undress was fairly obvious where her sash was still lying at her feet. Kakashi glanced over with apparent disinterest in the two shocked and silent girls in the doorway, one of which was Aki, looking particularly horrified, while the other was Yui, who's face was pinched in typical outrage that Sakura dared visit her line of sight. And yet there was a small flicker of satisfaction in the latter girl's expression, and Sakura was forced to remember that scandal was a form of currency amongst the staff. Already Sakura knew this would be all over the household in a matter of hours.

"S-Sorry, we didn't realise you were busy," Aki mumbled, as she and Yui hastily backed out of the room.

Sakura raised her hand to try and call them back and explain. This wasn't what it looked like! Right now they had probably assumed she and Kakashi were up to something perverted, but in reality it was just that he'd wanted to feel her naked belly… and the reason it held such significance to him was because he happened to be the father.

Naturally, Sakura's explanations died in her throat. The truth was worse than the assumption, and she stared at the shut door, feeling pale and dizzy and suddenly too cold.

"That should do the trick," Kakashi murmured, rolling one stiff shoulder. He started towards the porch and stepped down onto the moist earth outside.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, holding her yukata tightly shut. "Did… did you plan for that to happen? Did you make me undress just so that someone would walk in and draw conclusions? Why the hell would you do that?!"

He glanced at her over his shoulder, poker-faced and inscrutable. "You'll see why," he said plainly.

He squelched away across the grass, disappearing out of sight around the corner of the house, and for a long time Sakura could only stand dumbly. Had he no comprehension of how important it was that they weren't linked together in any noticeable way?

Was his display of interest in their baby just an act to get her to undress? Was all that care just as fake as the rest of him?

The door behind her banged open and Kaoru burst in. "Dumplings!" she called cheerfully. "Fresh from the kitchen and still toasty hot! Oh goodness, why are you half naked?"

Sakura sat down on her futon and stuffed one dumpling after another down her throat. Even if she felt like a million tiny needles were pricking her lungs and making it difficult to breathe against the desire to cry, not even her appetite could be banished. And when she finished off the last dumpling on the plate, she lay down and decided she was too exhausted to do her last duty of the day, but at least Kaoru was there to say she would cover for Sakura in the kitchens, and for the rest of the evening Sakura lay alone in her room, drifting in and out of sleep.

She only roused properly when Aki, Yui, and Kaoru returned as a group to turn into bed. And whereas Kaoru had been bubbly and friendly only just a few hours ago, now she was as quiet and diffident as the other two. All three girls seemed to be tip-toeing around Sakura, almost literally, as they changed their clothes and made their beds, and it was obvious as to why. The gossip that she'd been caught in a compromising situation with the Hatake black sheep had probably encompassed the entire estate by now, while Sakura herself had yet to even leave the scene of the crime.

Kaoru blinked dark eyes of worry at her, Aki looked pitying, and Yui still looked remarkably smug about the whole thing. Not one of them said anything to her. It was possible that they didn't fully know what had happened or what they should say.

That all changed, however, at exactly ten-thirty when there came a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Yui called, clearly still queen of this dorm, even if she'd lost her official rank to Aki.

A young man tentatively pulled open the door, but didn't enter, and kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling. Sakura recognised him as one of the servants who was probably still on call for the night. "Sorry to disturb you," he said, "but one of the guests has requested the presence of a maid called Sakura."

All the other girls looked expectantly at Sakura, who felt a new kind of dread beginning to wrap around her. "Which guest?" she deadpanned.

"Hatake Kakashi, miss. He wants to see you in his room."

Aki took one look at Sakura's pale, frozen face and turned to the servant boy. "Tell him she's unwell. If he needs waiting on, someone else can do it."

"He seemed pretty set on just her," the young man answered hesitantly. He probably didn't want to go back to a dangerous guest and explain his wishes could not be fulfilled, and from the look on his face, he might just start dragging Sakura over there himself if she tried to protest.

"No, it's ok," Sakura told Aki heavily. "I'll go."

But the girl winced. "I really don't think that's wise-"

"He's not going to leave me alone. I have to go see what he wants," she said, slipping on her socks and fastening her sash a little tighter. Ignoring the apprehensive looks from the other maids, Sakura followed the servant boy out of the room.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Arrangement_


	24. The Arrangement

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Arrangement

* * *

_Spend all your time waiting for that second chance,_

_For that break that will make it ok._

* * *

Another whorl of smoke slipped past his ear, dragged away by the faint, evening breeze. There wasn't much to look out here on the balcony, just a dark sky and darker hills and in the very distance he could just make out the tiny twinkling lights of the industrial skyscrapers of Amegakure, but even at this distance he could see the hazy red smog rising up from it.

Kakashi took another drag of his cigarette and washed it down with a cup of shochu. He was already halfway through the bottle and as of yet it had failed to lift his mood. Then again there was only so much alcohol could do when faced with the kind of problems facing Kakashi now. With a soft sigh, he rubbed his thumb over his brow, trying to push away that headache that followed him everywhere these days.

A light hand tapped at his door, but for a moment Kakashi didn't respond. He needed a moment to prepare before he took a deep breath and called out, "Bring her in."

He didn't turn as the door to his chamber opened and he heard a short, faint scuffle as if one person was trying to force another very reluctant person inside. Then the door slammed shut again with a relieved snap and everything went quiet.

Kakashi pointed to the step beside him. "Sit," he ordered.

Slow footsteps dragged across the floor, through the living area and across the bedroom until she was standing directly beside him, staring out at the night. But she refused to sit. "People can't see us together," she whispered. "You're insane to even-"

"People have already seen us together, and I want them to _think_ we're together," Kakashi replied, topping up his cup of shochu before bringing it back to his lips.

Sakura looked down at him, confused and very wary. "Why?" she asked.

"If we're open about this, it won't look as if we have something to hide. And this way I can keep an eye on you," he replied, shrugging.

If Sakura had fur, it would suddenly have been standing on end. "You _said_ you'd leave me alone!" she hissed.

"And you should realise by now that I'm not above lies and manipulation to get what I want." He pointed back to the step next to him. "Now sit down."

She stared at him, hesitating, as if trying to suss out exactly what kind of trick he was going to pull. Evidently she decided it was safe enough to sit down, or else it might be easier to find out what was going on in his head if she humoured him for a while. Kakashi gratefully gulped his shochu. Only weak people needed alcohol to boost their courage… but Kakashi wasn't so conceited that he couldn't admit to feeling a little weak right now. A stressful month back in Konoha worrying about himself being uncovered, or Sakura being uncovered in his absence, and of the prospect of becoming a father, and that Sakura would never forgive him for it… compounded by the nasty fight he'd had to forge through on his journey back to this place; weaker men would have turned into gibbering wrecks by now.

For a while, he said nothing, as his mind was a blank landscape of dulled nerves and thoughts. He was in no rush to talk to her. He wanted to explain everything to her and justify himself and hope for a little vindication, but he knew it would be an uphill struggle all the way, if not just totally impossible, and he wasn't in a hurry to engage in that battle. Right now he was content to sit in this dour, angry silence, in which she hated him almost as much as he hated himself.

He took the opportunity to look at her too while she was stoically trying to deny his very existence next to her. The size of her when she'd turned around back in her room had astonished him. He hadn't been lying when he'd said Kurenai had been just as big at six months as Sakura was now at four. Then again, Sakura was a more lightly built girl; shorter, slimmer, narrower hips, and a great deal younger than Kurenai had been with her first child.

But perhaps what had struck Kakashi most was just how beautiful she was. He'd never really believed that myth about glowing pregnant women, and if there had been some truth behind it, he suspected it was probably just because pregnant women were both unusually happy, or pink-cheeked from the extra blood volume, or just needed treatment for radiation poisoning.

Sakura couldn't be accused of being happy at least. Her face was a rigid, stony mask that was fixed, and yet still managed to convey a hundred and one emotions. She was angry, hurting, upset and confused, and the more schooled she tried to keep her expression, the more obvious it was. And in a way he felt guilty at taking pleasure in the smooth, impassive lines of her face. Her lips were especially rosy, her eyes especially dark and clear, and whether that was anger or pregnancy blushing her cheeks, her natural complexion was what other women strived for with makeup. Some men might be put off by the curve of her stomach, but Kakashi wouldn't deny that his sick, primitive little ego that was nothing but smugly satisfied that it was his handiwork. On the other hand, the civilised superego was pretty horrified and was still wishing it could invent a time machine to undo what had been done.

"If I'd known for a second you'd stopped taking your birth control, I would never have done that," he said in a low voice, half to himself.

Sakura's eyes narrowed faintly at the horizon. "Is that really what you want to talk about?" she asked coldly.

"What's done is done, I suppose," he sighed, lifting his cigarette again. "What else would you like to talk about? The weather? It's always the same here. Maybe you'd like to talk about poetry? Knitting? Sasuke?"

Sakura's head jerked up to regard him warily.

He lifted an eyebrow in response. "Pakkun told me. I heard it was a very touching reunion."

"It's none of your business," she told him stonily. "He's gone now."

"Didn't care to liberate you then?"

"I'd rather take my chances with the man who _doesn't _have the guts to kill me," she retorted.

He touched a hand to his heart, as if touched, and blew out another stream of smoke.

"Could you put that out?" she asked sharply. "Even you should know that's bad for the baby."

Fair point. Kakashi stubbed it out on the wooden decking and tossed the depleted butt over the railing. Immediately he felt its loss, and that was when he knew he had another problem on his hands to deal with. He'd gone from casual, occasional smoker firmly in control of his habits to an addict in less than four months. No doubt Sakura didn't approve, but it was her fault anyway and his smoking was possibly the mildest of his faults in her eyes right now.

"You're really looking out for that kid, huh?" he murmured.

"This thing's a nuisance, but that doesn't mean I'll be careless," she said, wrapping her arms loosely around her belly. "Whoever raises it deserves to have a healthy child."

"You're giving it away then," he deadpanned.

She shrugged. "Of course. You said it yourself: I'm in no fit state to be a mother, so what choice do I have? There's plenty of women out there that could take good care if it."

Kakashi turned over her admission carefully. The idea of giving away a child of his own, never to see it again or know what happened to it, and not know his or her face if he passed them on the street in twenty years… it didn't sit well with him. He doubted it sat well with Sakura either, but there were so few choices for people in their situation, and the last thing he wanted to do was see Sakura saddled with a child she couldn't cope with, and one he wasn't even sure she could love. Her hatred for him could have transferred over to an apathy towards his baby, what with terms like "this thing" and just plain "it". Then again, it could just be Sakura trying to run away from the things that scared her most. She couldn't physically separate herself from this child, so instead she was all too obviously trying to keep her distance emotionally.

In all truth, that was probably for the best.

"You should go see a doctor," he told her. "There's one on the estate."

"I'm not sick," she pointed out.

"I know. But that's what people do when they're pregnant, isn't it? They go see doctors." At least Kurenai had seemed to spend every other day at the hospital when she was carrying Meiyu.

"I don't know," Sakura said stolidly. "I've never been pregnant before."

"Neither have I," he felt the need to remind her. "But you have to be wary of… complications. I mean, you didn't even know you had foetal incompatibility-"

"Why should I?" she demanded hotly. "I'm a physician – and I specialise in poisons and antidotes. Obstetrics and gynaecology are a _completely_ different area of medicine! I don't even like _looking _down there if I can help it-!"

"Just go see the doctor," he interrupted. "That much is important. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because of this pregnancy."

Sakura's face fell. "Don't say things like that," she grumbled.

"Like what?"

"Like you actually care."

"I _do_ actually care," he told her. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't care."

"Well, you shouldn't!" she snapped. "I'd be happier if you didn't! Why the hell did you ask me to come here, Kakashi? Was it really to keep an eye on me? What are you up to?"

He was too surprised by the lack of suffix attached to his name to respond quickly. Dropping the 'sensei' the way she had might, under other circumstances, seem like a more familiar gesture. However, his name sounded blunt and wrong the way she said it. She wasn't calling him by his name because she was close to him, or because she was carrying his child. She was calling him by his name because she'd lost too much respect for him to acknowledge him as her superior.

Knowing there wasn't much lower he could sink in her eyes, he answered honestly. "I brought you here to seduce you and make you my mistress."

There was a beat of silence. Then Sakura was suddenly on her feet and there was a sharp, ugly pain in his ribs from where she had kicked him. Kakashi grunted, but he had only half a second to grab one of Sakura's flowing yukata sleeves before she could make a run for the door. "You might have taken that a little too literally," he told her, rubbing his abused side.

"You're a _pig_!" she spat.

"Yes, I know," he said, dragging hard enough on her sleeve to force her to sit once again. "But this pig is your safest bet. As far as anyone else is concerned I've taken a special interest in you, though god only knows why. Maybe I just like your congenial approachability?"

Sakura glared at him.

"As long as people think I'm interested in you," he went on, ignoring her stare, "you're safe. No one's going to make an attempt on your life again, not when they think doing so would provoke me. So for all intents and purposes, we're now sleeping together."

"I already have nightmares about that, thank you," she retorted. "And my social standing in this household is already rocky. I don't need people thinking I'm an even bigger whore than they originally thought."

"It's the only way I can give you my protection. Better to be a whore who no one would dare touch, than be a virtuous maiden ready to be stepped on," he said as he picked up his bottle of shochu to pour another glass, only to find to his dismay that it was almost empty. "_Some _people would be grateful."

Sakura watched the dribbling alcohol with distaste. "You can't expect me to be grateful," she said in a low voice. "Not after the things you've done."

He rubbed his mouth and stared into the bottom of his glass. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry," he said, meaning it more intensely than could possibly be conveyed by words alone. More than he was capable of expressing by his very taciturn nature.

"If you're sorry, help me get out of here," she suggested, staring at his profile more closely than he cared for.

"If I let you go back, it would destroy everything I've worked for," he said dully. "You have to stay here. For now, at least."

"Then you can stuff your apology up your ass," she announced, and half turned away from him on the balcony step to resume ignoring his existence.

Being frozen out was perhaps not as bad as being chewed out, so Kakashi took her cold-shoulder with a vague sigh of relief and stretched out his stiff, sore leg that he'd patchily cleaned and bandaged himself. Ordinarily he would ask Sakura to heal it for him, but he knew that her chakra had been neutralised, and would remain that way until the very moment the infant left her body. Though even if that hadn't been the case, he knew that to ask her to heal him despite the current nature of their relationship would really be pushing his luck, if not taking his life into his hands.

He would have to cope without a medic, though he was struggling to understand how he'd ever really managed without one at his side. First there had been Rin, then after her he'd mainly resigned himself to whoever was on their shift at the hospital. After Sakura had dedicated her talents to medicine, he'd once again become used to having his own convenient little medic – one he was very reluctant to share with other teams. He'd always thought of her as _his_ medic, long before he'd ever really thought of her any other way, back when he'd been possessive of her for a good, professional reason, until he became possessive of her for stupid testosterone related reasons. That had been right around the time she'd started dating three years ago and he had found himself utterly incapable of being happy for her.

And now, without any intention, he'd managed to possess her the way no other man ever would. He'd taken her virginity. He'd gotten her pregnant. Then he'd written his name on her ass. No wonder she hated him.

In retrospect, the latter might have been a tad tasteless. But he was willing to remove the chakra tag in time, provided he was able to make her understand she had to stay put in this place… or when she grew to a size where escape was physically impossible. He wouldn't have to wait long, considering how she was already beginning to waddle a little.

Sakura suddenly gave a gasp of frustration beside him. "How long do I have to stay here?" she demanded, clearly suffering from his company.

He plucked a reasonable figure from his head. "Around two hours maybe."

"What could you possibly need two hours for?" she asked, giving him a scathing look.

"Well… one hour to seduce and tame the shrew," he explained, knowing he'd probably need one year or more to tame her in reality, "then about one hour for the main event, so to speak."

Now she just looked incredulous. "An hour?" she deadpanned.

"Yes," he said, growing uncomfortable. "An hour."

"You must be joking," she said very seriously. "It only took you ninety seconds to take my virginity."

Kakashi dropped onto his back like a stone, hands covering his face. There was only so much battering his poor male ego could take, and this woman – this _harpy –_ was unrelenting. "Go," he croaked. "Go and lash some other poor bastard with that horrible tongue of yours for a while."

There was a definite air of self satisfaction about Sakura as she rose to her feet and walked out of his chambers. She wasn't going to give him an inch to take back an iota of trust or affection he'd once secured from her. She had too much self-respect not to fight him to the bitter end on this, and he doubted they'd ever regain their original friendship.

He missed what they'd once had. Now, half bewildered, all he could ask was where had his Sakura gone? The one who'd knitted him an assortment of terrible winter accessories? The one who'd given him chocolates on valentine's day with a blush that contradicted her words when she told him she'd given the same chocolates to every guy she knew? The Sakura who sat beside his hospital bed whenever he was admitted and scolded him gently and repeatedly, even while she cut his food up and smiled at him warmly and scrubbed his armpits on cue? He missed how in tune she'd been to his sense of humour. How she'd picked up his jokes and played along, even when they left other people confused. He missed how cute she got when she was drunk, and how whenever he gave into to that incessant temptation to touch her, she accepted, even if they were the few times she didn't understand he wasn't joking.

She'd been his partner in more ways than just being his personal medic, or his favourite, most intuitive subordinate. If what they'd had wasn't important or special, it never would have progressed to the point it did. Even though that ninety seconds four months ago had been spur of the moment in nature, it never would have been possible if she hadn't felt the same way. And yet even before she'd found his closet full of skeletons, and before she could possibly have known about her pregnancy, he'd alienated her. He'd hoped at the time that they could make amends, but his own history had finally caught up with him, and all he'd succeeded in doing was pushing Sakura totally out of reach.

Perhaps some partnerships just weren't meant to be.

* * *

Sakura had to take a deep breath before entering her dorm again, hoping that the other girls had gone to sleep in her absence and so couldn't subject her to the third degree. But this turned out to be a futile dream when she opened the door and three girls suddenly sat bolt upright in their beds.

"Sakura?" whispered the silhouette which looked like Kaoru. "You've been gone nearly half an hour. What happened?"

"What did Kakashi want?" Aki's shadow asked.

Yui's form flopped back down on her bed, as if uninterested. "It's pretty obvious what he wanted, Aki," she said. "Although he sent her away _awfully_ quickly."

"It's not what you think," Sakura told them hastily. "We just talked."

The silence that followed was rather incredulous. It was a little much to ask that they believe her, not after what Aki and Yui had witnessed earlier. No doubt by now Kaoru had been filled in, and though Sakura had tried to warn the poor girl about crushing on such an unworthy man, it seems a bit too late.

"Why Sakura?" Kaoru whispered. "He could have any one of us. Why choose the one who's four months pregnant?"

"I heard from the rest of the clan that he's quite the pervert," Aki said with revulsion. "Maybe he has some weird fetish about pregnant women."

"It would have to be a fetish to go for her," Yui grumbled.

"He said he liked me for my congenial approachability," Sakura said, hoping to put their minds at ease.

Kaoru stared at her. "Fetish," she said.

"Definitely a pervert," Aki agreed.

"Oh, you…!" Sakura threw her hands up. "I'm going to bed. Don't any of you cows talk to me."

She felt her way towards her futon in the darkness, but it seemed like neither Kaoru nor Aki took a blind bit of notice about her 'do not talk to me' decree. "What's going on, Sakura?" Aki whispered to her. "Is he trying to make you his mistress or something?"

"Trying," Sakura huffed. "But I have no intention of accommodating him."

"Maybe someone should talk to Lord Zuru's retainer about this," Kaoru said anxiously. "Guests shouldn't harass the staff. Maybe Zuru can get him to back off?"

"Zuru doesn't care what happens to us," Aki pointed out to her. "And while they're here, the Hatake clan can do whatever they like. There's no way Zuru would stand up to Hatake Kakashi."

"What about Karasu?" Kaoru suggested.

"I suppose…" Aki muttered. "He's very controlling of Kakashi. If he suspects he's going the same way as the White Fang, he'll put a stop to it."

"The same way as the White Fang?" Sakura echoed, confused.

"Falling for… outsiders."

But Sakura just shook her head. "No. Don't tell Karasu; I don't want to cause a fuss, and I can handle myself."

She settled her head down on her pillow, signalling that was the end of the matter, and as usual she found little difficulty in finding sleep. Even when her mind was brimming with anxieties, not a power in the world could stop her once her head found a pillow.

Mostly she slept too deeply to remember what she dreamt about, but the next morning Sakura woke to the images of her dreams still vivid and fresh in her mind. Kakashi had been in it, with his jonin uniform. In his arms he'd held a bundle of cloth out of which waved two tiny arms, but without moving he seemed to have been getting further and further away from her, and all she could hear was him saying, "You aren't fit to be a mother. You can barely look after yourself."

When Sakura opened her eyes, she sat up with a strange sense of unease. It was just a dream, but the feeling of loss had felt too real.

But as usual there was so little time to dwell on anything once a new day began. She had to wash and dress and head down to breakfast to wolf down a quantity of food that would make even the largest, hardest working gardener at the table envious. Then almost immediately after that, she had take breakfast to the twins who always liked their food prepared in such a particular way that you were liable to have it thrown back at you if a single eggie soldier was out of place. Fortunately today was an amenable day and the two girls gave her no trouble, even if they had started to refer to her as "The Fat One".

It wasn't that bad, considering. Kaoru was "The Stupid One" because she couldn't read to them, Aki was "The Chalky One" due to her pale skin and her tendency to turn even paler when faced with the twins. Yui's nickname was "The Fun One", although this was not in fact a positive verdict on Yui's character. She was only fun to the twins because her arrogance, vanity, and proud nature made her a perfect target for a prank, and her reactions were always just enough over the to be highly satisfying.

After the twins, she had the rest of the morning to herself. Normally she might use this time to put her feet up and relax, but last night Kakashi had raised a very valid point that she herself had not yet considered. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. At four months pregnant, she would need to see a doctor at some point, and there was a limit to how much she could pretend her condition didn't exist.

With three hours to spare, she headed off along the edge of the lake to where she knew the doctor's house sat some distance from the centre of the estate. Last time she'd been there, Himiko had lay dying in one of the backrooms. Whether it was the doctor's care that had saved her or Sakura's limited healing arts, the woman had survived the night. She guessed that at the very least he was a _competent_ civilian doctor who probably had some experience of women and pregnancy.

When she knocked on his door he opened it with the same bored air as she remembered. He looked her over once, and without her even having to say a word he knew who she was. "I was wondering when you'd come," he said, stepping back to let her inside.

Sakura didn't often visit doctors; the only reason she might have to do so was when something fell outside her area of medicine. Gynaecology was one of those things. Back in Konoha she'd regularly gone to a female doctor for her birth control… a woman who'd quite happily told Sakura that the effects of her injections would last up to a year once they were stopped, and that Sakura wouldn't have to worry about protection for many months to come. When Sakura got back, she was going to strangle that woman to within an inch of her life.

But as usual as Sakura entered the domain of another medical practitioner, she felt a pang of unease. Her confidence in her own knowledge and abilities left her with a sense of vulnerability that she was handing herself over to someone possibly less qualified than she was. The doctor sat her down in a chair in what looked like his office and once again he appraised her from a distance.

"How do you feel?"

Where did she start? "Tired, sometimes pretty queasy, hungry, and I always need to pee. I get these pains occasionally in my back and in my pelvis." She took a breath. "Is that normal?"

"I'd say so," he said with such nonchalance that she was forced to believe him. "How far along are you?"

Now that was a tricky one to answer. For her own health it was better to be truthful, but at the same time, she couldn't admit to being pregnant before arriving here. That would blow a nice, big, leaky hole in her story that Toshio was the only relative of the Hatake clan she'd been with.

But she doubted this doctor knew when she'd arrived. "Four months," she said truthfully.

He looked at her. "Hm."

Didn't he believe her? "Is there a problem?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yes," he said bluntly, making her heart skip.

Did he know? Did he know Toshio couldn't possibly be the father? "W-What?" Sakura demanded.

"You're big for four months, that's all," he told her.

Sakura leant back a little with a sharp intake of breath. "It's not… it's not twins, is it?" she whispered in a tone that suggested he might come to some harm if he said 'yes'.

"You're a slight girl, that's all. Short, slim, narrow hips. You might have a very difficult birth."

The prospect of pain didn't worry her. "But it's not twins, right?"

"I couldn't possibly tell from over here."

"Then get over here and check!" she demanded.

The doctor gave a put-upon sigh – really, Tsunade would never let one of her own medics get away with such a lacklustre attitude – and lifted a stethoscope to his ears. Sakura gave her wordless permission as she loosened her sash and yukata enough for him to press the cold end against the firm, rounded curve of her belly.

She waited as he listened. All she could hear was her own heartbeat.

"Just the one," the doctor said eventually. "It's not twins."

Sakura could finally breathe easily. She could kick Kakashi for putting that horrible idea in her head. "And it's healthy?" she asked.

"It's a strong little heartbeat, but I'd have to do a sonogram to be sure."

"You have a sonogram?"

"Mainly for Lord Zuru's heart… but it can be used for you too, of course."

This made Sakura hesitate. She knew all about sonograms, and had even performed a few in her time at the hospital. She also knew it was standard procedure for pregnant women to have ultrasounds. Yet it suddenly seemed too much. It was different when it was inside her, slowly, silently growing every week, making its presence known only by way of uncomfortable symptoms and a swelling stomach. To actually look inside her and see it on a screen…?

"I'd rather not," Sakura said gingerly.

"It's not dangerous," the doctor assured her, misunderstanding her concern. "It's perfectly safe."

"I know, but…"

"It's the only way I can be certain you and your baby are healthy. Isn't that why you came here?" he asked. "Don't you want to be thorough?"

It was only sensible. She couldn't neglect to be 'thorough' because of her own fears. "Alright," Sakura said tiredly. "Where do you want me?"

The sonogram machine was in another room entirely. Sakura regarded the paper-covered bed with trepidation, once again having to loosen her dress to expose her stomach.

This was another 'first time' that was turning out much unlike Sakura had imagined. During the first ultrasound of her first pregnancy, she'd always expected to be in the warm familiarity of Konoha's hospital with her husband at her side and a friendly doctor standing over her. She would never in a million years have guessed she would be miles from home on a mission with no one but one extremely maladroit doctor slapping a very cold gel onto her belly.

The screen was positioned next to Sakura. If she turned her head she could look, but the moment the transducer connected with her skin she looked away, fixing her gaze on the door of the examination room.

Gel squelched and the probe pressed hard against her. The doctor tapped away at his keyboard with one hand, and then stopped. "There you go."

Sakura's heart thundered, but she couldn't bring herself to look.

"Almost eighteen weeks exactly, judging by the size. There's the head… there's the body. There's the heartbeat. Would you like to listen?"

Before she could refuse, a distorted pattering noise filled the room. Sakura almost jumped, and for the first time swung her eyes to the monitor in shock. That was the heartbeat. _It was so fast_. And there on the screen was a messy bundle of black, white and, grey shapes, but as a medic she identified immediately what she was looking at.

One of the legs kicked and Sakura immediately remembered herself. She tore her gaze away once more to stare at a shelf of bottle and potions, but it was too late. The image was burned in her mind. This was her child.

"Looks pretty healthy to me," the doctor said, turning off the sound of the rapid little heartbeat. "It's moving around a little bit. Do you want to know the sex?"

"You can tell?" Sakura whispered.

"Sure."

Whether this baby turned out to be a boy or a girl potentially led to very different problems in her future. A girl would be of no interest to the Zuru clan, while a boy would be perceived as a serious threat and one worth destroying. She had to plan her steps with the utmost care either way, but if she was honest with herself… she hoped for a girl. Not just because of the Zuru family, but because she'd always wanted to have a daughter.

But that seemed irrelevant now. She wouldn't be keeping the baby, regardless of its gender.

"No," Sakura said softly. "I don't want to know."

The doctor nodded and began to shut down the equipment. He handed Sakura a wad of tissues to clean herself, and as she dressed he said, casually, "You probably have a lot of worries with that man being the father."

He meant Toshio of course, though his words rang oddly true nevertheless.

"If you know what's good for you," he said slowly, giving her a penetrating stare. "You'd leave here before that child's born."

Sakura's hands paused on her sash. Her eyes met his and she knew exactly what he was trying to tell her.

Her life was in danger, because the baby was male.

* * *

Kakashi touched none of his food or drink that evening. It was unlikely to offend their hosts, as his family's sheer presence in this place was an affront to Lord and Lady Zuru. Once again the two owners of the estate sat quietly at one end of the table as if they were the only guests in this room, and looking around, the laidback self-assurance of his relatives seemed to exude an air of ownership.

He supposed, in a way, after all the Hatake clan had done for this family and this estate, they as good as owned it by virtue of life debt alone. The clan members chatted and laughed and ate vast quantities, and there were few sour faces among them. Apart from perhaps himself. And Reika, who sat on his left looking absolutely thunderous since he'd thrown her out of his room with a string of nasty insults. And then perhaps Karasu, who sat on his right, who'd had a fairly fixed sort of expression since Kakashi had arrived.

If Kakashi was to guess what was bothering his cousin, he'd say that word had finally reached him that Kakashi had entertained one of the maids alone in his room last night.

He became even more certain of this belief when the door opened and Sakura entered with another maid to help refresh drinks. Her eyes met his once and once only as she moved around the low table, offering to refill the cup of any half-empty cup. As usual there was an air of unhappiness about her, and even though she had never looked as beautiful and faultless, her eyes were dull and almost glazed.

Karasu leaned towards him. "I didn't know you were into fat girls."

Kakashi shrugged.

"It's bad manners to fiddle with our honoured hosts' staff," he went on. "What if I have to punish you?"

"Then punish me," Kakashi rebuked.

Karasu sighed and rolled his shoulders. "I could just kill her."

"Don't be jealous," Kakashi told him. "I'll do what I like, whenever I like. How often I like."

Karasu snorted. "Speaking of jealousy, look to your left."

Kakashi did, and was met with the poisonous glare of Reika. He quickly looked away. She'd certainly taken it personally that no sooner had he kicked her to the curb than he'd taken up with a servant. Her pure blood and arrogance would see this as nothing but the most grievous insult. To be ditched for a common maid was the hardest blow he could have dealt her.

Once again Karasu laughed. "I suppose she's pretty, I'll give you that. But this is a bit much… picking up a maid after I mention my concerns about her. I'm not sure I've decided she's trustworthy."

"Then I'll find out myself, won't I?" Kakashi pointed out darkly.

"Is this some strange new method of interrogation?" Karasu asked suspiciously.

"Why not? She's pretty."

"And you _do_ realise she's pregnant by that little turd over there. Her kid's one of our own," Karasu pointed out.

"I know," Kakashi said. In fact the child would be a more 'pure-blooded' Hatake than even Karasu himself was.

"Don't get too embroiled in that drama," his clan leader warned. "She'll probably end up dead in a few months."

"If the kid's one of our own, shouldn't we be protecting her?" Kakashi asked lightly.

Karasu seemed to weigh the idea, but dismissed it with a shake of his head. "Toshio's the spawn of one of the branch family members. Low born, and diluted. A child of him and a common maid is of no interest to us. Let them raise it as a servant. And if they want to kill it, that's unpleasant but we shouldn't intervene too much in their business if we don't want to lose their patronage." He paused and leant towards Kakashi. "You, on the other hand…"

"Me?" Kakashi repeated flatly.

"When are you going to get moving? You're not getting any younger, and we've talked about this before. The best way for you to be accepted back into the clan by the others is if you produced some sprogs with a respectable girl. Why don't you get your ass in order and pop one in Reika already? She's dying for it. But no, you're too busy trying to get into an occupied cubicle."

He'd heard Sakura described as a lot of things in the past; a candyfloss carrot-top, a schizophrenic marshmallow, and the hottest pussy in the administrative offices (he would hit anyone using the last in his presence). But never had he heard her described as an 'occupied cubicle'. Sakura was standing directly against the wall opposite. Judging from the pink flush on her cheeks, she'd heard every word.

"In time," Kakashi said indifferently.

Karasu sighed. "I just don't understand you sometimes," he said. "You need to focus less on your prick and more on your duty. You know the formation of Konoha's troops?"

"Off by heart."

"Tomorrow. There's an emissary from Iwa coming and you will fill him in on all the positions and strategies of Konoha's men. Iwa will be pushing into the fire country by the end of the month and with any luck your information will serve as a crushing blow."

"Yes. With any luck," Kakashi responded, trying to inject some feeling into the words that felt hard and hollow in his chest.

Karasu's hand clapped his shoulder. "Then you can finally come home," he said, smiling.

Kakashi remembered that smile as he paced his room later that night. It was a smile that promised so much, all the things he'd wanted his whole life; brothers, sisters – some semblance of a family to fill the gaping hole his father had torn out of him. There had always been comrades, and acquaintances, and even occasionally friends that came close to being family, but it was never quite the same.

And Karasu knew this, and he dangled the promise of family before his nose since the day they'd first met.

Distractedly, Kakashi wrenched a lever set into the wall. It made no sound but somewhere deeper in the house a bell was probably ringing in the servant's quarters. Here in one of the overflow guestrooms he was almost cut off and isolated from the rest of the household, and it took several minutes before a male servant knocked on his door.

Isolated. The story of his life.

"One the housemaids," Kakashi said to the man standing attentively at the door. "Her name's Sakura. Bring her to me."

"Yes, Hatake-sama." The servant bowed and ducked out again.

Kakashi paced around his chambers. If he walked across the bedroom to the balcony, he would only stop for a few seconds to stare at the view before turning around and walking back out into the living chamber. The minutes crawled past, and it was a while before he felt Sakura's approach. Any longer and he would have gone to fetch her himself.

By the time she pushed open the door he'd managed to contain himself in a chair opposite a small TV set that was playing on mute. One look at her and he almost regretted pulling her out of bed, but even as tired and dishevelled as she was, she still had the energy to glare at him.

"Make yourself at home," he told her.

She seemed to interpret this as standing awkwardly over the threshold. "How long do I have to stay this time?" she asked tetchily.

"Depends on what kind of impression you want to give people," he said. "Stay five minutes and make them think I'm using you like a dirty tissue, or if you want to give the illusion of some dignified arrangement then you should stay an hour or more."

Sakura thought about this, then promptly turned to leave.

"You're staying for an hour," he said shortly before she could read the handle. "Sit down. You look like hell."

She shot him a spiteful look, letting him know that she wanted to do nothing but the complete opposite of his 'suggestion', and it was only through a magnificent control of her temper that she turned around and moved to sit on the lounger against the wall opposite. She sat carefully, both hands resting on her knees with her sleeves all but shielding her stomach. But it was difficult to assess her body language when she stared at him with such penetrating venom. Kakashi found it hard to look away, and had the uncanny feeling this was probably what butterflies felt like when the pin descended on them to trap them forever against a wall of velvet.

It wasn't easy or pleasant being disliked by Haruno Sakura. He'd never fully appreciated just how terrifying she could be when all he had ever known was a pink-haired sweetheart who'd never had any reason to hate or distrust him before. Until he'd gone behind her back, lied to her, and had ultimately imprisoned her.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked her, trying to lighten the mood.

"Would you like to _go fuck yourself_?"

She wasn't thirsty, apparently. Kakashi tapped his fingers against his arm and tried to ignore the malevolent atmosphere in the room. He didn't know how he was going to put up with this for an hour. "You went to the doctor," he stated.

Her head twitched slightly to the side, though her expression didn't change. "You're stalking me," she accused.

"I can't help but notice your movements," he said, "with that chakra tag on your body."

"I went to the doctor. So what?" she demanded, hostility oozing from every pore.

Kakashi rubbed his neck. "So… what did he say?"

"Does it matter?"

"I think so."

"He said I was having a seven-headed monster child who is destined to be the harbinger of the next apocalypse," she said, straight-faced. "I said that wasn't surprising, considering who fathered it."

"That's pretty funny," Kakashi murmured, though neither of them even felt like cracking a smile. "What did he _really _say?"

"Nothing. Everything's normal. It was such a mundane examination I was nearly bored to tears."

"Did you check the gender?" he asked her.

She flinched. "Why would I do that? I don't care. You don't either, so stop asking."

He stared at her. "Aren't you even a little curious?" he pressed. "Apathy doesn't suit you, Sakura."

"What do you know?" she demanded. "It's not mine to be curious about, and I'll be happy once this thing drops and I can get back on with my life. That's all I care about."

"Then why are you crying?"

Sakura's hand dashed across her eyes as her face reddened. She could drop her head to stare hard at her lap, but she wasn't fooling him. "Shut up," she muttered, and for a long time they remained silent. Kakashi conveniently became interested in the stitching of his gloves as Sakura discreetly tried to remove something from her eye.

"I'm only upset," she said at last in a shaken voice, "because I keep thinking what my mother would say if she was alive today. If she knew that I'd given myself to a _traitor,_ and been stupid enough to actually believe my own doctor about the birth control, she'd be so disappointed in me. Her first grandchild shouldn't have been a mistake. It shouldn't have been _yours_."

"At least it'll probably be good looking."

"And you don't have any shame, do you?" she hissed. "I heard you talking with Karasu in the hall. You're giving information directly to Iwa now? This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"Iwa won't get anything useful out of me," he said shortly. "I told you, I'll still protect Konoha no matter what, and I'd rather die than support a village that took so much from me in the last war."

"That's what I don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "Why help the Syndicate when they're working for the very people who killed your teammates?"

"Perhaps because I'm _not_ helping them."

Something in Sakura's face softened uncertainly. "Tell me there's been a mistake, Sensei," she said softly. "Tell me you're here to feed false information to Karasu and Iwa for Tsunade. That's right, isn't it?"

Kakashi sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at the floor between his knees. "If Tsunade knew all about this… even if I could convince her of my loyalty, she would still be forced to take down the syndicate. I won't sell out Konoha, but no one can ask me to sell out my own family either."

Her face hardened again. "You're just like Sasuke," she said. "Choosing your family over your village, and willing to watch _good people_ march to their deaths because the only thing that matters to you is _blood_."

"You don't understand," he said quietly.

"I understand plenty," she retorted. "And what do you plan to do then? Sit on the fence and watch your family and your village tear each other to shreds?"

Kakashi pushed himself onto his feet. "I won't let that happen," he said, pacing, still looking at the floor because it was just too difficult to look her in the eye. "I'm the only one in a position to stop this war. I've already convinced Karasu to hold off any frontal assault for _months_ now."

A frown touched Sakura's brow. "How?"

"Lies… more lies… fabrications, twisted truths, misdirection." He ran his hands over his masked face. "I lie to Konoha, I lie to Karasu, I lie to my friends. And I lie to you." He sighed and leant against the wall. "All these lies mount up until you can no longer contain them, Sakura. I feel like I'm being pulled in five directions at once, and one of these days I'm going to snap."

"I think you already have," she remarked callously.

"I've betrayed my village because I've harboured the Syndicate. I've betrayed my family because I've been giving them fake numbers and coordinates over and over again," he said in a hollow tone. "If either of them learn of my deceit, I'm a dead man. But what else can I do? I can't watch them die. It's too senseless."

Kakashi sank back down into his chair with a hand curled over his brow. "I don't need you to forgive me for what I've done. But _please_ understand… I really don't know what else to do."

Sakura stared at him in silence, her face oddly blank. Only the soft pitter patter of rain could be heard coming from the bedroom, accompanied by the roll of a warm, wet sigh of rainforest air. It was into this silence that Sakura finally spoke. "Let me leave this place," she said quietly.

He winced. "I can't," he said wretchedly. "If you breathe a word of any of this, everything I've tried to hold together falls apart."

"You don't trust me?" she snapped.

"How could I?" He shrugged at her. "You don't trust me at all."

The look on her face let him know he was right. She didn't trust him anymore, and now he could no longer guarantee her loyalty to him. If he let her go, she might very well contact Konoha and tell them everything, and though he doubted she would feel pleasure in doing so, he wasn't blind to the fact that this girl was a kunoichi. She'd killed people for less than what he'd done to her.

"I can't stay here forever," she told him quietly.

"Just a little longer," he said wearily. "I just need more time."

"And I need to be out of here before I give birth," she said. "Everyone believes this baby is Toshio's and that's the only thing keeping Karasu off my back. But once the baby is born, the Zuru family will almost certainly try to kill it."

"It's not a threat to them unless it's male," Kakashi pointed out.

Sakura looked away from him. "Then it is a threat."

It took several seconds for those two little words to sink in, and when they did it was the equivalent of a ton of bricks. Kakashi's mouth dropped open slightly. He couldn't form a coherent thought let alone a sentence. A boy. A son. He was going to have a son.

Daunted, Sakura's gaze darted to his. "What is it?" she asked.

"I was kinda hoping for a girl," he admitted.

Her mouth fixed in an angry line. "What does it matter? We're not keeping it either way."

A son which he'd never see. "I know," he said, his head dropping.

"That's why I have to leave before it's born. I have to go to Ame or some other village. I have to find some proper parents for this thing," she said, crossing her hands over her stomach.

"I'll go with you when the time comes," he said.

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "To keep tabs on me?" she guessed cynically.

"Because you shouldn't be alone," he corrected. "I _want_ to help you, Sakura, if you'd let me."

She looked away, nodding faintly. There appeared to be something in her eye again.

There was so very little he could do for her now, he felt frustratingly impotent. But hopefully by the time Sakura's pregnancy came to an end, things would have changed around here. He already had plans in motion that would cut ties between the Syndicate and Iwa. That was all he wanted. The Hatake clan would always hate Konoha, but it would be powerless without the backing of a rival village.

And if that came to fruition, Sakura would be safe, along with her baby. Their baby. Kakashi looked at her from across the room where she sat cradling her stomach, perhaps without realising how protective she looked. The bond between mother and child was something not even Sakura could escape. But as for Kakashi… there was no mistake that he was on the outside, looking in at something that would never be his.

"You look tired," he said at last. "You can go back to your room if you like."

A flush of relief passed over her face as she stood. But before she could reach the door he added, "Come back tomorrow night at eleven. If you don't come, I'll bring you here myself wherever you are. So it's in your best interests not to resist this too much."

He glimpsed her face and watched that relief slide into anger. Then she was gone from the room with a bang.

………………………………….

Next Chapter: _Fabrications, Twisted Truths, and Misdirection_


	25. Twisted Truths and Misdirection

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Four: Fabrications, Twisted Truths, and Misdirection

* * *

_When you think it couldn't get much worse_

_The numbers rise on the death toll_

_And the chimes of freedom flash and fade_

_Only heard from far, far away._

* * *

Kakashi looked around the street with no small amount of trepidation. At night-time all the lights seemed twice as bright, and all in deep, throbbing shades of red and orange, leaving roving shadows that seemed to create movement where there was none. He'd had two years to get used to operating with just one eye, but even now he turned his head sharply the moment he thought he saw anything move on his left side. In this seedy little place, his finely honed senses were prone to overreacting.

The seventh time he visibly jerked when a club door opened to their left, Jiraiya sighed at him. "Would you relax? You're acting like such a newbie, Kakashi-kun."

"I am a newbie, Jiraiya-sama," Kakashi replied, coming to a stop beside the sannin. He followed the older man's gaze across the crowded street to a lively looking joint whose windows were lit up like a pumpkin and the sound of merriment drifted out of the wide doorway. There were exactly two types of people hanging around outside; drunk men with money to burn, and excessively made-up women in exotic kimonos that hung off their shoulders.

"Take note, Kakashi-kun," Jiraiya said reverently. "The best brothel in all the fire country."

It was probably true, since prostitution was illegal in most provinces save for this one. Only here could you find a whole village dedicated to eroticism, and the pleasure quarter in this place was infamous throughout the land. Kakashi knew that after a good pay day, this was precisely where a lot of his fellow shinobi came to blow off some steam.

Kakashi had so far felt no such inclination to come here. He still didn't understand how exactly he'd ended up in Otafuku Gai anyway.

"You said we were going to train in sacred grounds," Kakashi pointed out, watching a woman bend over to speak to a man sitting at a bench outside the brothel. Her cleavage was a universe unto itself.

"We're here, aren't we?" Jiraiya pointed out cheerfully. "And you need _lots _of training from the looks of you. Come on!"

Kakashi remained rooted to the spot. "I can't go in there," he said.

"Why not?" Jiraiya blinked at him.

The cleavage would eat him. "I'm not old enough," he replied stolidly.

"You're fifteen, Kakashi-kun, you're a man now!" Jiraiya slung an arm around his shoulder to begin shuttling him across the street whether he liked it or not. "Or at least, you will be once one of these lovely girls pop that cherry of yours."

"I don't want to pop anything," Kakashi insisted, trying to dig his heels in.

"Nonsense. Think of it as training! You want to make it good for your first love, don't you? You don't want to disappoint her, do you?"

Kakashi wondered who he was talking about. "No," he admitted.

"So like all things you want to master, you need to _practise_ first." They were standing just outside the brothel now and Jiraiya swept his hand out, as if revealing all the women working there. The few standing outside the entice customers were beginning to look over with curious, painted smiles. Kakashi could see they had caught the scent of fresh blood.

"I think I'll wait out here," said Kakashi, hand automatically latching onto one of the pillars holding up the wide awning. This way no one could move him unless they wanted to tear down the whole building with him.

"You're not being very sporting, Kakashi."

Tough. Few things managed to perturb Kakashi. Finding your father dead in the living room with his guts spilling out onto the floor more or less set the bar pretty high regarding what kind of things could make him sweat. Being sized up by ten heavily armed men twice his size wouldn't even make his heart flutter.

Ten heavily endowed women with bare shoulders, on the other hand…

Kakashi couldn't help the gulp reflex. He wasn't shy, he was just terrified for his life. This was how a snow rabbit felt when surrounded by a pack of wolves. One wrong move and he'd be torn limb from limb.

"I'll wait out here," he repeated firmly, clinging to the pillar. "Have fun, Jiraiya-sama."

"You'll regret this later," Jiraiya warned, but shrugged anyway. He didn't want to waste too much time trying to convince the stick in the mud to have some fun when he himself could be getting on with it. "Have some money. Spend it wisely and meet me by that fountain over there in about… three hours."

Kakashi looked at said fountain, taking note of the three naked female statues who appeared to be doing some kind of synchronised handstand while water gushed from between their-

Kakashi quickly looked away. "Three hours. Got it." He took the money Jiraiya was holding out - though it was only a couple of measly coins – and remained fast by his pillar until the older man had looped arms with one of the heavily made-up women and was too far away to drag Kakashi with them.

He took off at a vague stroll down the high street, looking about with grim interest at all the attractions he passed. Several brothels, several more themed hotels, some kind of movie theatre that he _thought_ about entering until he realised all the movies on the board were called things like "Cumming Tonight" or "Dog-style Afternoon". Kakashi didn't really want to sit in a dark room for an hour with the kind of people who would go see such films.

The first neutral place he found was a soba stall. The noodles weren't great, but he sucked them down anyway for lack of anything better to do. He wound away the time idly kicking the spokes of his stool and ordering seconds until his stomach was full and he only had one coin left. This he clenched firmly in his hand and finally departed, looking once more for another establishment in this town that wouldn't rob him of his virginity in some way.

That was when he found the pachinko parlour. Granted, most of the machines and games were sex themed, but plenty weren't. And though some people might think entering an arcade armed with just one coin might be a bit pointless, Kakashi wisely assessed his situation. He could spend it on one game of whack-a-frog, or he could attempt to multiple his earnings at one of the gambling machines.

Kakashi walked around the parlour slowly, watching the row upon row of men playing at pachinko and slot machines. Not only was prostitution legal here, but so was gambling, and this hall was all but packed out completely with the thundering noise of hundreds of machines spewing metal balls and playing garish jingles.

He'd never actually been inside one of these places before, as too many people back in Konoha knew exactly how old he was (the Infamous Hatake Kakashi, the youngest ninja to graduate to the rank of jonin two years ago, aged thirteen), and half the population of Konoha seemed to be able to recognise him on sight. There was probably an age restriction in this place too, and though Kakashi doubted he looked eighteen – he'd always been a little short for his age – there were plenty of other things an underage boy could do in this town that were _much_ worse. As such, the attendants overlooked him.

Kakashi picked his target thoughtfully. All the machines were rigged one way or another, but the slot machines appeared to allow less physical control than the pachinko games, so he chose the latter, and sat down at the very end of one of the rows since this was one of the few empty seats that left a gap between him and the next player in the form of another empty seat. He was always a bit wary of sitting closer to strangers than necessary.

The gears seemed easy enough… even if the euphemisms ran a little too thick. Once he put his last coin in the slot, his balls 'dropped' as the machine put it, before asking him to 'shoot his load' using the handheld throttle. Ignoring the suggestively posed pictures of women in the background, Kakashi did as he was told and heard the rattle of little metal balls as they cascaded through pins and obstacles to disappear through gates in the bottom. The pictures on the screen before him began to spin at a dizzying speed before gradually slowing to a stop to form a picture of a woman in three parts wearing a mismatched bikini before the whole thing started again. Kakashi guessed the objective was to make her match, but like the slot machines it was deceptively random.

Nothing the sharingan couldn't handle.

Bumping up his headband to expose his borrowed eye, Kakashi quickly judged the mechanics before him – the size and weight of the balls, the paths of each individual pin, the velocity the balls fell, and just how much pressure was needed on the throttle to get most of the balls down into that prize winning gate. The pictures on the screen no longer dashed by in an incomprehensible blur. The very millisecond Kakashi saw the red-head with the red lingerie about to line up, he tapped his finger against the metal casing of the console and let a tiny electric charge loose.

The screen froze, then flashed, and suddenly hundreds of small silver balls began spilling into the tray above his knees.

Already he'd be able to pay Jiraiya back two-fold for what he'd lent, and Kakashi settled himself back to spin the throttle again and watch the screen intently for a match. He couldn't hit the jackpot too many times though. People would only get suspicious.

No one appeared to notice him for a long time, or at least not until he'd accumulated roughly ten trays of balls beside his chair which he was thinking of exchanging for one of those flash looking swords on the wall. Something began to prickle along the back of his neck, and instantly he knew he was being watched.

Kakashi didn't react, but he certainly toned down his playing, suspecting one of the attendants might have decided to take notice of his age after all since he insisted on winning all the time. It was probably time to go and meet Jiraiya anyway… just… he needed one more go!

Balls rattled and clattered and a body moved into the empty seat beside him. His first reaction was annoyance, as Kakashi's personal space bubble extended beyond the chair next to him, but when it dawned on him that the new player was looking sideways at him in a rather interested way, his feet got itchy. It was time to leave.

"You're cheating."

Kakashi glanced sideways at the person next to him, and it was almost like he'd looked into a mirrored wall. The face staring back at him was so much like his own that for several seconds he was struck dumb. Same eyes, same nose, same hair. He was even about the same age as Kakashi judging from his height. Even a vague kind of smile hung on his lips, one that Kakashi knew he'd worn himself in the old pictures of his father's family album, though that was before he'd started to wear a mask.

Eventually he managed to find his voice. "I'm not cheating," he denied, too surprised at the appearance of the boy beside him to manage an honest tone.

"I can't figure out how you're doing it though," the boy went on, leaning in to look at Kakashi's hands before looking up at his face. "Maybe that weird eye of yours does something?"

Kakashi's weird eye promptly shut. "Mind your own business," he grunted, sliding his headband down over the sharingan to hide it completely.

"This _is _my business," the boy informed him. "Or, it will be one day, I suppose. My father practically owns half the entertainment in this town, and in other towns in other countries too."

"Your dad's a businessman?" Kakashi asked incredulously. Somehow he doubted this was a family business, considering this boy was almost certainly a ninja, and a pretty advanced one at that. The two daggers strapped to his back gave it away, and Kakashi sensed that vague smile hid something much more sharp and lethal.

"Businessman? Not really." And that was all the boy elaborated, as he suddenly waved to Kakashi. "Look, I'll show you how to cheat properly."

"Properly?"

"No one can catch you this way." The boy took a pick from his pouch and inserted it into the lock of the machine before him. After a couple of jiggles it clicked and the whole front swung open a few inches. Kakashi looked around, but everyone was too engrossed in their own games to notice and not a single attendant was in sight. The boy stuck his hand inside the gap and began to feel around. "They're all programmed with different settings, you see," he told Kakashi as he fiddled. "Setting ten is like super tight-ass, it won't pay out anything. Setting one makes you hit the jackpot like every couple of goes."

"You can program it?"

"It's easy." The boy slammed the machine shut again. "Gimme some balls, I'll show you."

He didn't ask permission to stick his hand into Kakashi's lap, and it was bound to be a waste of time complaining. He was intrigued anyway, not so much that the machine could be reprogrammed, but that this boy knew how to do it and was willingly showing Kakashi how to do it too.

"See!" the boy said over the sudden din. His machine was flashing and clacking, having hit the jackpot on the first try. "Piece of cake!"

"That's great," Kakashi said distractedly. "But I wasn't cheating anyway… and I should probably go. I have to meet someone."

The boy gave him a puzzled look. "Don't you recognise me?"

Kakashi stopped and looked at the boy. It was hard to ignore their similar features, but he'd been willing to put that down to coincidence. "Should I?" he asked tentatively.

"Well, we haven't met before, but I thought you'd at least figure it out, Kakashi."

That was probably supposed to impress him, but being youngest jonin in a century with an exemplary war record already beneath his belt meant his reputation proceeded him in many places these days. He was already spoken of as _Sharingan Kakashi_ in Iwa, and anyone who saw his eye and realised he wasn't an Uchiha would know exactly who he was. "Figure what out?" he asked dryly.

"Who I am."

"I don't know who you are," he said dismissively, about to turn away.

"Don't you even suspect you might know?"

Kakashi didn't dare hope.

The boy sighed and gestured to himself as if Kakashi was a little slow. "I'm Hatake Karasu. Hatake Sakumo was my father's brother… so I guess that makes us cousins. Hi. You're not as tall as I thought you'd be."

* * *

Since that night nineteen years ago, Kakashi had realised he wasn't as alone as he'd thought. Suddenly he had family, and not just one cousin, but dozens of cousins, and uncles and aunts he'd never even dreamed of. He'd learnt about the grandfather his own father had never mentioned; learnt his name and his grandmother's name, and learnt the names of _their_ parents. A genuine family tree bloomed before his eyes. The family grave in Konoha bearing just two names seemed absurdly small and disingenuous by comparison.

But the reason why his father had never even mentioned the existence of the rest of the Hatake family quickly became clear to Kakashi when Karasu, after cashing in their balls, dragged him to meet his father. The man was so much like Sakumo that it hurt to even be in the same room as him, yet from the outset it was clear that Kakashi wouldn't find a father figure in his uncle. The leader of the nomadic Hatake clan didn't like him. The sins of the father, he said, were carried in the child. And not only was Hatake Sakumo a deserter and a traitor for abandoning his seat at the head of the upper house to settle with an 'outsider' in a static village, but he'd died a coward, and no son of his was welcome back.

When Kakashi returned to Jiraiya later that night, he kept his new discovery to himself, uncertain of what to make of it. Neither did he know what Konoha would make of his family attachment to a rogue clan who viewed the village as an enemy.

However, if the head of his newfound clan had rejected him outright, Karasu hadn't. He wrote frequently, and Kakashi wrote back when he could (awkwardly – he wasn't used to writing casual letters, but he was determined to hold on to the one bond of real 'family' he had left), even if it was a little difficult getting a letter to someone who was never in one place longer than a month. Whenever the clan was nearby, he was invited to visit. His superiors gave him leave all too happily since councillors had all but been begging him to take _some_ breaks between operations since he was six, and it was through those visits that Kakashi got to know his clan.

He tried to avoid his uncle – even though the man didn't banish him on sight, he would always sit Kakashi down while he went on at length about all the crimes and faults of Konoha and the other villages across the land. But mostly just Konoha. It was an intense rant that could go on for hours and most of it was probably true, giving Kakashi no comfort, and the longer he sat there listening, the more his uncle seemed to think he was redeemable.

Karasu accepted him as he was, always ready to answer questions Kakashi had thought would never be answered. He showed him signature clan moves and jutsus, and in turn Kakashi taught him some of the more interesting techniques he'd copied over the years. His prowess and international reputation awed most of the upper and lower houses combined, and Kakashi was quite the novelty when he joined up with the clan. Aunts always wanted to take his mask off and feed him up, his cousins always wanted him to show off his eye. Several _female_ cousins tagged after him like the girls back in Konoha did.

Reika, one of Karasu's cousin on his mother's side, was five years younger than himself, and was always the boldest. She was the one who told him why his uncle _really_ hated Kakashi, and who the true heir of the clan was. Even at a young age she'd had plans of elevating her position in the clan by sucking up to someone like Kakashi – someone she believed would take back what was his one day.

He hadn't known it at the time, but Karasu had plans too.

It was during a visit some time after his eighteenth birthday that his uncle finally tried to kill him. He'd been drunk at the time, calling him 'Sakumo' repeatedly all through the evening, but he'd still come very close to smashing Kakashi's face through the back of his skull. The rest of the upper house had intervened in the ensuing chaos, which was perhaps the only reason Kakashi had survived such a sudden, savage attack, and when things had calmed afterwards Karasu had left to speak to his father in private.

When he came back he had a smile on his face and blood all over his arms. "Let's play some pachinko, ok?" he'd suggested.

His father had been found dead the next morning and Karasu was swiftly deferred to as the new head. Kakashi rather suspected he knew who'd killed him…

And it was only in the passing years that Karasu revealed just how far his ruthless ambitions went. Where his father had been content to drink sake and rant about the injustice of static villages and their affiliated clans, Karasu was not. He's put things in motion that Kakashi had hardly noticed until it was too late, and now everything had finally culminated in this very moment, when he found himself stood around a map with Karasu and other members of the Hatake upper house, looking across at an emissary and his bodyguards from Iwa. It wasn't what he'd call a relaxed atmosphere – far from it. Almost everyone in the room had their hands glued to the hilts of their weapons. The rest glowered unpleasantly at one another across the table.

"You're sure?" the Iwa emissary asked him, scowling hard.

"Absolutely," Kakashi replied evenly, running a finger across the map. "The pass from waterfall is blocked. There's nothing but an ambush waiting for you there. Konoha already anticipated this strategy so the border all the way to Suna is being watched."

"Just how much man-power does Konoha have?" the emissary demanded. He was naturally incredulous of everything Kakashi was telling him, which was only natural given his role in the last war.

"Nearly six thousand," Kakashi said, "And that's not including the back-up from Suna."

Karasu walked over to the map. He wasn't pleased. "My other sources in Konoha never reported that many people."

"The majority of ANBU are underground. Most jonin don't even know how many people there are working in those sections, and the info is strictly off limits to anyone but the Hokage and her closest advisors. There's a whole division recruited from one of the fire country's oversea territories that's inflating the numbers."

"Imperialism at its finest," Karasu sighed. "How do you know this?"

"I'm next in line for Hokage," Kakashi said, as if that explained it all.

It seemed to. The emissary grunted and pointed at the blue spaces on the map. "We'll have to launch a surprise attack by sea."

"Good luck with that," Karasu said drolly. "The only way through to the fire country from the coast is through Sound lands, and they'd fight you the whole way. If you came from the east coast directly onto the fire country's coast, you'd be sailing through water country territory, and they're not your allies. They'd have you at a supreme disadvantage at sea. Where's the Kyuubi, Kakashi?"

Kakashi shrugged. Naruto was probably still stationed along the border of the grass country, but… "In Konoha, most likely."

"Ideally he should be drawn far away from there at all costs. We don't stand a chance of attacking Konoha while he's at home. In the mean time…" Karasu sighed and shook his head. "Where do you suggest the best place to launch an invasion?"

Once again, Kakashi was forced to lie. "Konoha's people are spread too thin along the border… if Iwa concentrates it's invasion at a single point coming from the grass country, you should break through. That's the only way I can think of." In truth, most of Konoha's people were along the grass border already. Of all the places for Iwa to attack, it would be the best fortified and with Naruto there, every rock nin faced slaughter. Kakashi didn't care so much about that.

"What about us?" Kakashi asked. "What will be the syndicate's move?"

"That depends on whether your information pans out," Karasu said evasively. "I have something in mind but it may take a while to put into action."

"We can only buy so much time for you," the emissary warned. "Use our payment wisely."

Karasu closed his eyes. "Yes, yes."

The reference eluded Kakashi. Karasu obviously had some plan that the Iwa emissary knew about and had apparently accepted, and it probably had something to do with the 'payment' they'd been given, but this was a secret that would not be shared easily. Kakashi refrained from pushing for answers. Some things he wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway. He was content enough to know that Karasu had no immediate plans to launch a confrontation between the Syndicate and Konoha.

Everything he knew now would have to do. Tomorrow he could send a message back to Konoha to add extra manpower to the grass country border with the hopes that the emissary would take his advice and act upon it.

When he was finally released from the meeting, Kakashi made his way back to his room feeling almost relieved if not for the knowledge he was now facing another difficult opponent: Sakura. It was already past midnight by then, and Sakura had been waiting for over an hour. He knew she was there long before he arrived at his door; his chakra tag told him as much, though it told him nothing about what kind of mood she'd be in.

Taking a deep breath, Kakashi opened the door and walked in. Almost immediately his eyes landed on the splendid couch against the opposite wall, and the figure of the pink-haired girl stretched out on it. Her head was cushioned against the armrest and her eyes were shut. Judging from the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest, anyone would assume she was fast asleep.

Kakashi knew better.

If Sakura thought for a second that she looked nearly that angelic when she was asleep, she had another thing coming. She wasn't even snoring.

Well. If she was going to feign sleep to avoid talking to him, then he might as well play along. Kakashi went into the bedroom and pulled the lightweight top blanket off his bed and returned to spread it over Sakura, making sure to tuck it around her carefully so she'd feel no draught. She gave a very convincing sleepy murmur but didn't open her eyes. Her commitment to the role was admirable, and he wondered how long she planned to carry it on for…

It was still easier than putting up with her accusatory glare and tense, frosty silences, so he left her to her oscar winning performance and moved back to the bedroom to sit at the work table beneath the window. There were paper and pens already provided in the drawers, fresh and unused, and he mechanically pulled out a sheaf to begin writing.

"What are you doing?"

Evidently Sakura gave up quickly when she didn't have an audience. He glanced at her over his shoulder, noticing the blanket he'd given her was now draped around her shoulders like a shroud. "Sorry, did I wake you?" he asked drolly.

Sakura shrugged. "What are you writing?" she asked again.

He turned back to the note he'd barely even begun to write. "A letter to Konoha."

"Why?"

"I'm warning them that I've heard a rumour from a reasonably reliably source that Iwa is probably planning a focused attack near the border of the grass country some time soon," he said.

"Why?"

"This one probably deserves a heads-up."

"No… why are you doing that?" she asked coming forward to perch on the edge of the bed behind him. "I don't think Karasu would be happy with you if he knew."

"Probably not," he agreed.

Sakura's eyes met his, and he saw something uncertain glittering there. "I could tell him, you know," she said softly. "I could tell him you're two-timing him, helping out Konoha like this. He might put _you_ under lock and key. How would you like that? I could, you know, because you don't have it in you to take me down with you…"

He smiled slightly, tilting his head back. "Karasu wouldn't settle for mundane punishments. He'd kill me, Sakura," he told her bluntly. "And I don't think you have it in you either."

She gave him a reproachful look. "He's your cousin. Would he really kill you?"

"I wouldn't underestimate a man who killed his own father," he replied.

A look a revulsion slowly spread over Sakura's face. "And you betrayed Konoha for family like that?"

"You can't choose your family, I suppose," he admitted. "But they're not bad people. Not really. They've always been kind to me and I can't repay them with betrayal."

"They're only nice to you because you're a perfect specimen of their 'upper house'," she said derisively. "What about Aki? Your clan treats her like a stranger because she's not fair-haired and inbred. And you don't have to turn them in – but you shouldn't be _helping _them at the very least!"

"I'm not helping them," he protested.

"Then why are you here?" she demanded.

Kakashi slammed his pen down. "I'm here for you, you ungrateful woman," he snapped. "The only reason I am here is because I found your brainless cat delivering a message to the Hokage and realised what kind of mess you'd walked into! I came because I was worried about you – about what kind of trouble that flapping mouth of yours would get _everyone_ into! And the reason I'm still here now is because I want to keep you safe. And because of that I have to play along with whatever Karasu wants or else he'll be suspicious, and it's _not_ what I planned on doing and I don't take pleasure in lying to anyone, so you could at least be a little bit more sympathetic."

"Aw," she said flatly. "Poor you."

"That's a start," Kakashi sighed. He rubbed his neck and turned back to his letter. "I have to give frequent status reports about you to Tsunade anyway."

Sakura frowned. "About me?" she echoed uncertainly. "_What _about me?"

"The only reason I got clearance to be here is because I'm supposed to be looking after you. You _are_ pregnant."

"Tsunade _knows_?!" Sakura cried, almost leaping to her feet in horror.

Kakashi glanced around at her, vaguely surprised by her strong reaction. "Yes. She knows."

"We… Well, what did she say?" she whispered.

He shrugged. "She didn't really say anything about it…"

"Oh god… she probably thinks I'm stupid and all kinds of incompetent." Sakura pulled her hands fretfully through her hair. "Did she seem disappointed to you? Was she scowling? Did she say she was suspending my apprenticeship?"

Kakashi thought. "Not really. Mostly I think she was worried about you being out here on your own."

"The point of me being out here on my own was so that people like her would never have to find out!" Sakura gasped. "Please tell me she's the only one."

Kakashi thought again. "Well… Shizune knows. Naturally. She knows everything Tsunade knows. And Ino knows because-"

"INO?!" Sakura literally screamed. It was a good thing this floor was nothing but empty overflow guestrooms. "Oh _shit_ – so _everyone_ knows!"

"Ino's under orders to keep her mouth shut. When I left, she seemed to be obeying it."

"_Ohgod ohgod ohgod…! _Who else knows?" she whimpered.

"Well…" He thought of Tenzou, who had looked almost as panicked as Sakura did now when he'd been told. "No one important," he finished.

Sakura glared at him through wet, narrow eyes. "Did _you_ tell them?"

"It was Ino," he explained. "She flew a bird scout over and overheard us arguing."

Those distressed eyes widened considerably. "That… that bird. The one you killed. That was her?" She paused. "That's why you killed it."

"Fortunately she didn't overhear too much," Kakashi said.

"Fortunately for _you._ Unfortunately for _me,_ she didn't overhear the part where I called you a treacherous swine!"

"You're still mad about that?"

"Mad?! What you've done is completely off the charts!" she gasped out. But it didn't seem to be in anger anymore. She was holding a hand under her belly and bending forward slightly. That furious scowl of anger was turning into a grimace of pain.

Kakashi turned around in his chair. "Are you ok?" he asked tentatively.

A muscle in her jaw ticked. "I'm fine."

She wasn't. Kakashi jumped to his feet, moving towards her to assist, but she slapped his hands away the moment he drew near. Her face smoothed of pain and she straightened. "I told you, I'm fine. I just get odd pains sometimes."

"That's normal?" he asked, worried.

"I think so," she said tersely.

"Maybe it was the baby's way of telling you to stop getting upset?"

"How can I when you still exist?" she grunted. She sat rubbing her stomach with a disgruntled expression on her face that was halfway between annoyance and worry. This pregnancy couldn't have been easy on her. And she was certainly going to refuse _his_ help whenever offered.

Sakura looked at the wall clock. "I should go to bed," she said at last, standing up. "I think I've stayed here long enough, don't you?"

Kakashi thought of that hard, lumpy futon waiting for her at the end of a long walk back to the servant's wing. "Stay with me."

"What?" She stared at him like he'd spoken another language.

"Your bed's terrible. You should be sleeping in a proper bed like this one," he said, pointing to the luxury emperor sized monster beside them.

Sakura sucked in a sharp breath. "_I'm not sleeping with you,_" she hissed.

"I'm not asking you to – I'm just asking you to take the bed. I'll sleep in the other room tonight… and I'll be gone in the morning before you get up, so you don't have to see me if you don't want. It's normal for a mistress to stay the night so it won't raise any more eyebrows than we already have."

She looked at the bed, and the longing was impossible to miss. She'd spent weeks on that servants' futon, and that was enough to make anyone's back sore even if you weren't pregnant. Her lower lip caught between her teeth as she pondered. In passing, Kakashi noticed she looked particularly lovely when she did that.

"You'll sleep in the other room?" she asked. "With the door shut?"

"Sure," he said, nodding. Whatever she wanted.

Gradually her shoulders seemed to loosen and she gave a hesitant nod of her own. "Ok. But only because you insist." Although it hadn't taken _too_ much to convince her. She must have been missing her old bed pretty badly if she was willing to share a guestroom with him under these circumstances. "I guess you'll need a blanket."

As she said it, she slipped off the one from around her shoulders and held it out to him. He took it, making sure not to brush against her fingers. She wouldn't like that. And of course the moment it was in his hands she turned away swiftly and sat down on the bed. "You may go," she told him formally.

He was being evicted. Kakashi sighed and grabbed his half-written letter from the table before heading towards the partition doors to the other room. He looked back before he closed them. "Will you be alright?"

She shrugged and nodded.

"If you need anything, just ask."

He was about to turn away again when she opened her mouth, as if about to interrupt him. He halted and waited. "What is it? Do you need something?"

She looked faintly embarrassed as her hands twisted in her lap. "Um… do you happen to have anything to eat?"

* * *

With muscles still aching for a hard day's travel, Ino pulled herself up onto her favourite bar stool. She preferred tea houses but none of the ones opened this late would be reputable, and she felt like she needed a kick of something stronger than green tea if she stood a chance of getting any sleep tonight.

She didn't know how much more she could take of this – not the missions, but of the jaw-aching, wall-banging oath of silence.

Her best friend, the one she'd loved, hated, and envied for most of her life, _was having a baby. _Ino could remember when they were both barely more than babies themselves. She remembered their elementary kunoichi classes in the fields, picking flowers and learning their names and their meanings. She remembered when they'd fought and pulled each other's hair over the cutest boy in the class. Sakura had only _just_ given her virginity away a few months ago to some as-yet-nameless yob. Now she was becoming a mother.

Of all the girls in their class, Ino would never have expected this. Sakura was so obvious the career driven type - the kind who would work themselves to the bone until suddenly they were nearly forty and their biological clock was screaming for attention. Sakura wouldn't even know what to do with a baby. What on earth was she _thinking?_

But then, it wasn't her fault. Something had happened on that mission and Ino had gathered it wasn't according to Sakura's plans. Some brute had done this to her. Had she been raped? It was hard to imagine any man being capable of forcing himself on that monstrously strong bitch, but undercover missions sometimes asked for _great_ sacrifices…

Whoever had done that to her would pay. Ino was certain of that. her mind was put at ease to know that Kakashi was now with her, looking after her in his own fashion. Which was a weird fashion. _Honestly_, Ino didn't really understand why Sakura had asked for him, rather than, say… a fellow female with some knowledge of pregnancy. As far as she knew, Kakashi was as clueless as an incorrigible bachelor came. The two must have been closer than Ino realised if she'd called for him of all people.

Someone slumped into the barstool next to her, making her glance over. He looked just about as miserable as she felt, though she doubted he was carrying a terrible secret on his shoulders that he was absolutely forbidden to tell anyone about. "Hey, Tenzou-taichou," she murmured.

"Hey… you…"

"Ino."

"Right, yeah."

It wasn't like they'd _fought_ together or anything. Ino rolled her eyes. Well, they hadn't crossed paths much these last few years, what with their areas being so widely apart. She was an interrogator and part-time florist. He was an ex-ANBU captain who did more house building than black operations these days. Ino remembered him clearly though, as she never forgot an eligible man. She, on the other hand, had not made nearly the same impression on him as a fifteen year old.

That may not have been the case any longer though, she thought, noticing his gaze idling down the length of her body. She smiled. Being checked out always cheered her up.

"Have I ever told you how I became an ANBU captain?" he began.

Why would she want to hear something as boring as that? So she said, "Yes, actually, you have."

"Oh." He leant back, looking puzzled. Then he looked at the beer in his hand. "I should probably cut back on these things if I'm getting memory blackouts."

"Speak for yourself." Ino tinkled her fingers in the air. "Oh – mister? Can I have another sweet martini please?"

The bartender slid her another glass and she began tipping it back heavily.

"I don't think I've ever seen you in here before," Tenzou said curiously. "What brings you?"

"Booze, obviously," she replied. "I'm drinking to forget."

"Forget what?"

"My friend, Sakura."

Tenzou coughed a little into his bottle and had to wipe his nose on his sleeve as his drink revisited him up a different airway. "S-Sakura?" he wheezed.

"You know her, right?" Ino glanced at him shrewdly. "She was on your team a while back."

"Yes," he said heavily. "I remember her. I… uh… hear she's on a mission."

"Yeah," she sighed. "Poor Sakura."

"Hm?"

She tipped her drink back again. "Nothing."

"You shouldn't worry about her. She's with Kakashi-sempai, after all."

"Hah," she snorted derisively, causing her new drinking buddy to glance over at her in surprise.

"What was that?"

"That was a derisive snort," she said.

"Because I mentioned Kakashi-sempai?"

"I repeat. _Hah."_

"You have a problem with Kakashi?" he wondered.

"Not him personally," she said with a maladroit sigh. "I just don't see how _he_ has anything to do with anything. I don't see why _he_ had to go with Sakura. Why didn't she ask for _me_? _I'm _ her friend. Sort of…"

"Well…" Tenzou scratched the back of his head awkwardly, as if trying to figure out the best way to phrase what he was going to say. "They're close. I don't think it's personal preference, but maybe Kakashi was just the only person who could help her?"

Ino shook her head. He didn't understand. This wasn't about complimentary skills and abilities. Sakura was _pregnant_. She didn't need stupid men hanging about, she needed a sympathetic woman, or even multiple women. But Tenzou wouldn't get that. He didn't know anything about what was going on with Sakura right now. "I don't agree he's the best choice," she grumbled. "But at least he's a good man. Pretty honourable, you know? A lot of integrity. I guess if a man _had_ to go, Kakashi is the one you'd trust to take good care of her."

Tenzou hastily began drinking as if to avoid replying to that. He finished with a wheezy gasp. "Yeah, well don't put too much stock in his supposed 'honour'," he muttered.

"Pardon?"

He had the guilty look of someone who knew too much. "Nothing." She recognised it because she'd been wearing it since the moment Tsunade had dismissed her from the office with the warning that word of Sakura's condition was not to leave this room. No matter how much she was desperately to spill her guts to _someone_, she valued her life too much to allow it. She wanted to tell Tenzou that the reason Kakashi was a bad choice was because he had all the midwifery experience of a cod, but then she might have to kill him.

Little did she know, Tenzou also wanted very much to tell Ino the reason why Kakashi was a _good_ choice was because it was all his damn fault in the first place and he needed to own up to his responsibilities. Likewise, he too valued his life. If Kakashi returned to find out he'd told Sakura's friends about what was supposed to be their private problem, he'd be kicked in the balls so hard he would never ever be able to join Kakashi in the exquisite agony that was fatherhood.

The two drinkers sighed to themselves, ordered another drink and fell into a deep, mulish silence. Both thought of their respective friends, deep in shit, deep in the rain country. Almost simultaneously their thoughts wandered naturally to someone else.

"Naruto's coming home soon," Tenzou commented, for the sole reason that of all the people in Konoha, _this_ was the one he probably needed to avoid. If by some horrible slip of the tongue Naruto found out that his best friend had gotten knocked up (by their superior of all people) Konoha might just be turned into a crater. Again.

"Is that so?" Ino said softly. Inwardly she swore to hell and back. It was bad enough keeping her mouth shut around Sakura's other friends, but how the hell was she going to keep from blabbing to Naruto? It wasn't fair she'd been born with this compulsive need to gossip. It was a severe neurological disorder! There was absolutely no way she'd be able to sit in the same room as one of Sakura's closest friends and carry on a normal conversation with him, knowing what she knew about their mutual medic-nin.

Just sitting here with Tenzou made her want to rock anxiously in her chair, like a little girl who desperately needed to relieve herself of one thing or another.

"Sooo…" Tenzou slurred after a while. "You come here often?"

Ino gave an exasperated sigh. "Just pay for my drink and let's go."

"Huh?"

"You've pulled."

"_Yes!"_

* * *

Pakkun's claws clicked along the stone floors of the undercroft. He was following the scent of a mouse, although he wasn't hunting it. Tracking little animals for food was something for cats and wolves. Pakkun, on the other hand, was quite civilised and preferred strings of sausages and slices of cooked chicken to raw animals. So as was usually the case, Pakkun's tracking was purely for fun.

The trail ended at one of the pantry's doors. Inside his mouse was probably happily nibbling at the corner of a sack of rice, and this was where the game ended. The door was locked and Pakkun sat back on his furry bottom, panting as he wondered what next to do to entertain himself. He might normally call it a night and go up to sleep at the end of Kakashi's bed, but while Sakura was there the pug had been effectively banished. Not that he wanted to be around. The mood between those two could bring a house down.

A clatter of pans further down the underground corridor made him close his mouth and cock his head. It sounded like someone was up in the kitchen, but who'd be working at _this_ hour? Perhaps it was an intruder. Claws clicking, Pakkun toddled off to investigate.

When he heard a rather familiar voice swearing up a flight of stairs, Pakkun paused. Ah, he thought. Look who else got banished.

Trotting up the wooden steps, Pakkun emerged in the long kitchen that seemed much larger at night than it was during the day when it was full of people. It wasn't completely dead though. The gas burning stove was always lit, throwing out warmth that was almost stifling compared to the underground passages. Someone was stood beside it, staring at a pan in a perplexed sort of way.

"What are you up to?" Pakkun rumbled as he came forward.

Kakashi wasn't surprised to hear his voice. He'd heard those claws coming a mile off. "What does it look like I'm up to."

"I think you're cooking," Pakkun observed. "What are you cooking?"

"Eggs. I'm boiling eggs. _'Do you have anything to eat?'_ I thought she meant a chocolate bar or something. But no. She wants hard boiled eggs. Three of them. _At one in the morning_. With salt."

"Can I have one?" Pakkun inquired.

Kakashi glanced at him hard. "I'm only doing this because it's my fault she wants eggs at all. You're just spoilt. Boil your own eggs."

Pakkun ignored him and bounced up onto the table behind his master to sniff at the box of eggs he'd left there. He selected one, crunched off the tip and began lapping the delicious, slimy contents. "It's only to be expected," he said around his snack. "Females always behave weird when they're expecting. My first mate got a taste for snails before she had our litter."

"Snails, huh? Do you think we should add that to the menu?"

"Best not. They get really uppity if you don't do _exactly_ what they say."

"Boiled eggs and salt it is then," Kakashi sighed as he began plucking out the hardened eggs one at a time to drop them into the first bowl he'd found, which was actually a strainer. As for the salt… well, he couldn't sprinkle it in the bowl (due to the holes, obviously) and he wasn't sure how much she wanted exactly anyway. So he picked up the whole receptacle and decided to take it with him, even though it was the size of a brick.

Pakkun removed his head from the egg box, yolk all over his face. "You've never done this before have you?"

"Shut up."

Pakkun stuck his head back in the box to continue crunching his way through the entire contents. Kakashi left him to it, feeling that as long as the dog left no sticky paw prints on the counter for the cooks tomorrow, no one would be able to link the demolition of a whole supply of eggs back to Kakashi.

When he returned to his chambers, the lights in the bedroom had all been doused save for the lamp by the bed. Sakura was sitting upright against the headboard looking excessively demure with her yukata still on and the blankets pulled up to her armpits. She watched him warily as he entered, but he could tell she was too hungry to snub him entirely right now.

Walking up to the bed, he held out the strainer of eggs mutely.

She looked at them sceptically. "You didn't peel them," she pointed out.

"You didn't specify that," he reminded her flatly.

"Because it's common sense. If you're preparing a meal for someone, you don't expect them to do half the preparation themselves." She took the eggs anyway and looked at him expectantly. "You brought salt, right?"

He set down the hefty container on the nightstand beside her.

She stared at it. "You're trying to kill me," she said.

"I'm not saying eat all of it. Take as much as you want," he sighed. "Is there anything else you need?" And he masterfully avoided adding a sarcastic 'princess' to the end of that question.

Sakura crunched one egg between her palms and began rolling it back and forth to rid it of its splintering shell. She looked at him thoughtfully. "No… I'll be fine," she said hesitantly. "Thank you."

It was almost as if she wasn't sure she meant it, but it was the first nice thing she'd said to him since he'd found her here. Better than nothing, he thought, and he turned to leave.

"Three eggs don't make up for what you did, Kakashi," she warned him, as if reading his thoughts. "This doesn't change anything."

He paused in the doorway, a frown marring his brow. "You're welcome, Sakura," he said thickly, pretending he hadn't heard, before sliding the partition shut with a thump.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Eye for an Eye_


	26. Eye for an Eye

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Five: Eye for an Eye

* * *

_All your gifts come out of hell_

_You brought them back for love_

_Throw a bucket down into your well_

_You fill it with your blood_

* * *

The bang from the bedroom woke Kakashi. His eyes snapped open instinctively, but he remained stunned. Why was he on the couch? Where was he? What had made that sound?

Oh – right. He'd given his bed up to Sakura last night and consigned himself to the couch in the next room. That wasn't too bad. He'd slept on cave floors in the past with no complaint; and by that standard this cushioned reclining sofa was the height of indulgence for a ninja.

But then he remembered his other promise to Sakura. _I'll be gone before you wake up. You won't have to see me if you don't want._

That had been part of the deal of her taking the bed, that she wouldn't have to face him. She probably wouldn't have accepted otherwise, and as he heard her walking towards the partition door, he knew she might not accept again if he didn't keep to his promises. But he'd never expected her to wake _this_ early!

Suddenly alive with adrenaline, Kakashi threw off the blanket and stood. His only escape was on the other side of the room – there was no way he could make it past the partition without Sakura seeing his shadow. Instead he retreated back, hurriedly searching for a secondary escape; a window, a screen, a cupboard, a tokonoma – _a tokonoma?_

Never being one to observe rules of etiquette, Kakashi thought nothing of climbing into the raised alcove and raising his hands in a quite transformation jutsu. Just in time too, as Sakura emerged from her room the very next moment.

Her eyes swept the room cautiously before she fully entered, probably trying to assess whether he was really gone. That gaze briefly swept over the tokonoma, but if she noticed that where once had been one flower arrangement now stood _two_, she gave no sign and her gaze moved onto the couch he'd abandoned in a hurry literally seconds ago.

Seeing that he was 'gone', she visibly relaxed and emerged completely. He expected her to leave quickly given her reluctance to be here at all, but she immediately began looking around the room as if she'd lost something. Zoning in on the couch, she got down on her knees very carefully and looked underneath it. When this seemed to turn up nothing, she sat up began running her hands along the gaps in the couch's cushions.

With a small gasp of triumph she straightened and lifted something too tiny for Kakashi to see, but probably an earring when she appeared to fix it to her ear..

And just as he thought she was _now_ about to leave, she pressed her hands against the blanket strewn over the couch to push herself up… and once again she stopped. Shit. She must have noticed the blanket was still warm! She held it in her hands as she straightened on her feet and looked around the room a little more furtively than before. She had to know he was hiding in here. Any moment now she'd throw something at him and that little bridge of trust he'd managed to build between them would be broken once and for all.

Then, as if she'd decided she really was alone after all, she held the blanket up to her nose and inhaled deeply. If Kakashi had possessed eyebrows right then, they would have knit together in confusion. Was she really sniffing his blanket?

Even when she'd liked him she'd complained about his smell…

Taking two more deep breaths, Sakura sighed and folded the blanket into a neat square and quietly slipped out of the door to start her morning. It was almost a full minute before Kakashi felt safe enough to drop the jutsu and step down from the alcove. The folded blanket lay on the couch at a perfect angle, perhaps testament to how much domesticity had been hammered into Sakura during her stay here now that she tidied up without thinking. Kakashi picked up the blanket and pressed it to his nose.

He couldn't smell anything at all.

* * *

Three curious heads swivelled in Sakura's direction the moment she opened the door to the dormitory. She'd caught them in the process of getting dressed, and it was all too obvious to everyone present that Sakura was still dressed in her clothes from yesterday.

"Morning," she chirped a little too brightly as she scooted rapidly over to her cupboard to fetch out a clean yukata and fresh underclothes.

"You were gone all night," Aki said behind her. "Were you with Kakashi-sama?"

It was a travesty that anyone on this planet would ever attach the suffix of 'sama' to Kakashi's name. Not even the slimiest academy suck-ups bothered to call him that. Yet here was a member of his own family deferring to him in such an appalling way_. _

Sakura wanted to reassure her that Kakashi hadn't so much as touched her last night, but even if she got Aki to believe her it would only rouse more interest than if she simply let everyone draw the natural conclusion. A man who invited a maid into his room for the night but didn't so much as lay a finger on her? Either something funny was going on, or he was impotent.

Wait… that might not be a bad rumour to spread…

"It's ok," Sakura said to her dark-haired friend. "Kakashi-se-sama has been a perfect gentleman."

Across the room, Yui flipped her long pink hair with an incredulous sound of contempt and carried on dressing. Kaoru and Aki still continued to look worried, but Sakura reflected that, fundamentally, what she'd was true. Kakashi had been surprisingly thoughtful last night, giving up his bed to her and even fetching her eggs… which she had to admit she'd asked for more to see if he would actually do it than because she was desperately craving them. She was faintly touched that he had.

Not only was he considerate of her needs, she had to reluctantly admit she saw where he was coming from. He was in a difficult situation. Even though she couldn't see how a single member of his family was all that loveable, she knew that the way she saw them was probably unlike the way he saw them. By all accounts Sakura's father had been a pretty scary man (who Sakura suspected she took after somewhat) and often people who remembered him would get a haunted look when his name came up. Nevertheless, her mother had loved him.

It was reasonable to believe these people had a hold over Kakashi that was stronger than blackmail. They probably loved him. Sakura didn't think she would sell out her own family for the sake of her village… so how could she truly expect Kakashi to do the same?

But this was a dangerous way to think. People had died because he hadn't come forward, and even more people would lose their lives if he continued to protect enemies of Konoha. However much she understood his desire to protect those he loved… Sakura didn't share that love. The people _she_ loved were the ones back in Konoha; the ones who would be fighting on the front lines when this war, orchestrated by that horrible clan, cam to a head.

She could understand, Kakashi, and even sympathise a little, but she could not approve of what he was doing. She couldn't allow herself to go along with his plans – not when the enemy had him by the heart. After Sasuke, Sakura could never trust someone to put their friends before their family.

There was, however, no harm in letting Kakashi believe she trusted him. Her only chance of contacting the village now was if he dropped his guard and allowed her a little breathing space. Even now she knew she was being watched. If not by him, then by his dogs.

"Sakura," Aki leant close to her. "I can always ask my uncle to-"

"Please, it's ok," Sakura whispered back. "He's not bad company. He's honestly much more preferably than certain other people."

Aki and Kaoru looked at each other, knowing exactly who 'certain other people' referred to. They weren't the only ones, as Yui chose that moment to slam her closet shut with a sudden blast of violence. "You three!" she hissed. "You're just so full of yourselves!." Then she added, glowering at Sakura, "Especially you."

Even though she was still tying her obi, she stormed out of the room. Aki was on her feet in seconds, running after her to try and soothe the girl's ruffled feathers. Sakura didn't care. Let Yui drive herself mad, and let Aki try to vainly keep the peace. It had nothing to do with her.

She and Kaoru blinked at one another for a moment before Kaoru suddenly smiled. "Can I?" she asked.

"Oh, go on," Sakura sighed indulgently.

Kaoru crept forward to pat her hand over Sakura's protruding stomach. "One for fortune! Two for luck!" she said, beaming. "Hey, have you thought of names yet?"

A hard lump rose in Sakura's throat. She tried to maintain her smile. "Names?" she said roughly. "I've not really thought about it." She hadn't yet told anyone besides Kakashi that she didn't even plan to keep the baby. Thinking up names for it was something she'd forbidden herself to do.

"They say you should give girl's pretty names, but if it's a boy, stick to something average. They'll thank you when they grow up." Kaoru tapped her chin thoughtfully. "My favourite name is Hana… or Hanako, or something like that, you know? For a girl."

"What about for a boy?" Sakura asked her.

"Pfft. Who'd want a boy? Girls are much sweeter and prettier than boys. You can dress them up in pretty things and they'll take after you… but boys probably take after their father's more, right? I guess that's not something you'd, um… want."

Sakura said nothing. Although she didn't think it mattered what gender the baby turned out to be, she was still worried that it would take after its father's side. It was almost laughable that a few years ago she'd heard, through the grapevine, that the Hokage had tried to encourage Kakashi to start a family, being that he was supposed to be the last of a line that had produced two elite jonin in succession for the village. But if Tsunade knew what Sakura knew now, she'd probably want Kakashi neutered. The world didn't need another Hatake.

Even if it was a bit late for that.

She and Kaoru dressed and made their way down to breakfast. Sakura attempted to look as mystified as everyone else when it was announced there would be no eggs, as some fiend appeared to have broken into the pantry last night to gobble the lot. Sakura settled for miso soup and drank it slowly as Kaoru chatted endlessly beside her.

The morning routine was thoroughly ingrained in her by now. After clearing away her place she went to the duty roster in the main corridor and looked up her list of tasks for the morning. There was only one – make the beds and tidy the rooms in the Nightingale wing where the Zuru family slept. That was easy enough, as it was usually only the twins who could mess up a room between one day and the next.

Sakura drifted away alone through the house, keeping an eye out for a familiar face – or mask. Kakashi had been true to his word when he'd been gone this morning, but where was he now? With Karasu? With other members of his family? Training outside by the lake? Or was he just lazing around on some porch somewhere, reading his book underneath the sun?

Probably the latter, knowing him.

Sakura tapped on the door of the master bedroom before she entered, just to make sure the inhabitants were truly gone. As usual, not much was required to tidy the room up; straighten that pillow, flap that sheet, take away those rumpled clothes for washing, brush that dust onto the floor, etc. It didn't take long, and she finished in record time (with a record number of cut corners). Sakura decided to leave the twins' room till last and moved on to the young master's room, but she hesitated before tapping on his door. If she heard so much as a rustle from inside, she would keep walking, but she knew from experience that he was often the first of the family rise and was rarely around the Nightingale wing during the day.

Hearing nothing, she pushed her way inside to assess the job. The bed needed making and folding back, but other than that, this set of rooms was hardly used and needed even less work than the master bedroom. Keen to hurry and finish, Sakura walked around the bed –

_Thump._

She froze. The door to the bathroom beside her had opened and there stood Toshio, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. A little bit of a late riser today, she thought, cursing her non-existent luck.

"Oi," he grunted. "Who said you could come in here?"

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I was just cleaning. I'll leave you alone."

She hoped she would at least make it to the door and be halfway down the corridor before he thought to stop her, but with one word he had her stopped mid-stride. "No. Stay and finish your work," he told, walking to his wardrobe to pull on his housecoat.

Maybe this wouldn't be a complete disaster, if he continued to ignore her like this? Sakura reached to plump the pillows on the bed, not quite believing she could be _that_ fortunate. And she was right.

"Seems at any given time the whole estate is talking about you," he said, checking his appearance in his mirror. "Your name is inescapable."

For the first time Sakura wondered how that made him feel, and one quick glance towards the mirror to meet his gaze through his reflection told her enough. It didn't make him feel _good_ at least. In fact, his eyes burned with contempt. She quickly turned back to her task.

"Does it satisfy you?" he asked. "Mocking me like this?"

Sakura's hands paused. "I've never intended to mock you, Toshio-sama. I'm sorry if-"

"You're sorry, huh?" he snorted. "What do words like that even mean coming from common rats like you?"

Sakura was at a loss. "I don't understand what I've done."

"I doubt you have the intelligence to comprehend much," he said harshly, turning to her. "You have no idea how filthy and sordid your behaviour is. You're carrying a child with the blood of a noble family, yet you're off fucking a hired thug every night? What right have you to do that? To me?"

He blamed her so easily. Sakura clamped down sharply on her rising anger. It would do no good to lose her temper in this situation and she shouldn't waste her breath pointing out to him that, as far as he was concerned, rape never made her his property, and neither did she even have the choice to refuse the advances of said 'hired thug'.

Her life, her feelings, none of that mattered to him.

"I'm sorry, Toshio-sama," she said evenly. "I never wanted to humiliate you."

He stared at her with something resembling unease and revulsion. "There's always been something weird about you…"

Sakura had only a brief moment to wonder what that meant before he suddenly raised his fist. He was about to strike her. She could avoid it, easily, as by any shinobi standard he was hardly fast. But it wasn't worth it. _Go on, hit me, _she mentally sighed. Let him work out his anger the usual way and then maybe he'd leave her alone sooner.

The hand remained raised, and he continued to stare at her. The hit never came.

Belatedly she realised she'd misjudged his intention completely. He was used to girls like Kaoru who flinched and cowered at the mere sight of raised fist, to the end that the raised fist alone was all he needed for a satisfying reaction.

Sakura's calm acceptance unnerved him.

Toshio's face twisted furiously. "Lower your filthy eyes, you little slut!" he hissed, and suddenly the hand came down against her face.

The jagged edge of his ring scored a line beneath her eye. Something warm like a hot tear trickled down her cheek and dripped from her jaw onto her yukata. Sakura looked down, noting the red dot on the material. All she could feel was mild annoyance that such a small fry had managed to make _her_ bleed.

Before she could look up, he hit her again, and again, slamming his fist against the side of her head. Her ear rung. She winced. If she stood her ground, it would only get worse. He would be satisfied by nothing but her complete prostration at his feet, and so, overacting a little, she yelped beneath the weight of his blows and pretended to fall to the floor, clinging to the edge of the bed.

"You're a freak," he muttered. "An ugly – wretched – freak! You'd do everyone a favour if you just _died._"

She thought that was the end of it, until suddenly his leg lashed out, kicking her in the ribs. Sakura gasped and froze. Slaps and punches to her face and shoulders was one thing. She could bear that. The infant inside her, however, couldn't. "Wait!" she cried breathlessly. "Don't kick me – the baby-"

"You don't deserve to bear any child of a noble," he spat.

Without thinking, Sakura reached into her sleeve to withdraw the tiny tourne knife she always carried with her. He was going to kick her again, but before he did that, she would stick this thing in his eye and twist until his brains came out. She felt no hesitation. _No one_ threatened the life of a baby like this. No one threatened _her_ baby.

"_Toshio!"_

Before either could attack the other they stopped dead. Sakura turned her head slightly. It sounded like… Lord Zuru.

"Toshio – get out here! You're needed in the entrance hall!"

Toshio's tongue clicked in annoyance. "I'm busy-"

"NOW!"

Lord Zuru could be awfully frightening when he wanted to be. Even Toshio seemed a little taken aback by his tone, and with one last poisonous look at Sakura, he walked around the bed and disappeared out the door.

Sakura remained kneeling next to the bed, her fingers tensed around the little knife. She'd almost killed him. A second more and he would be writhing in his death roes at her feet this very moment. She'd almost killed him for _kicking _her.

No. Her arms wrapped around her belly protectively. She'd nearly killed him because he'd wanted to kill the baby. And it wasn't the sudden surge of bloodlust that left her hands shaking now; it was how fiercely she'd wanted to protect something she wasn't sure she had ever liked.

The jangle of a collar beside her alerted her to the other person who had just entered the room. She glanced dazedly to her right and saw a small pug sitting there, wiggling his tail cautiously. "You ok?" he rumbled.

She nodded slowly. "Was that you? Calling just now?"

"Good impression, huh?"

"Zuru never sounds that angry."

"Well, I had to get him to leave somehow. Biting his ankles probably wouldn't work a second time." Pakkun sat down with a doggy sigh. "We should tell Kakashi."

Sakura pulled a face. "Why?" she whispered.

"He'd do something about it."

"Exactly why we can't tell him," she said heavily, forcing herself to stand. Half her face and neck stung a little bit, and that kick would probably leave a bruise, but she'd had worse in training sessions. "He hits like a girl anyway."

"Yeah, but even I sensed murder intent in you," Pakkun said. "You were about to kill him for it. I wasn't sure whether to even interfere. Anyone who tries to kill their own pup is sick in the head. Hum. Makes you kinda glad it's Kakashi's, huh?"

"Not at all," Sakura huffed, brushing down her yukata. She glanced in the mirror and wiped the worst of the blood off with the back of her hand. "I'm going back to the dorm to wash. If you tell Kakashi, you'll never get another cat-flavoured biscuit as long as you live."

"Harsh," he remarked, but didn't argue.

As she headed back through the corridors of the undercroft she was forced to grudgingly admit that she probably needed the protection of these dogs. Their constant shadowing of her every move was her biggest block to contacting Konoha, but at the same time, Pakkun really had saved her twice now. Perhaps not her life, but they'd certainly saved her from making a messy mistake. If she really had killed Toshio back there, this estate would have erupted in chaos.

Things were complicated enough, she felt, without Toshio's blood on her hands.

The encounter left her disturbed. She'd never felt such sudden willingness and determination to kill before, certainly not someone who was so much weaker than herself. And yet if faced with the same situation again, she would react the same way without hesitation. She knew she would.

Aki and Kaoru were sitting on one of the futons when Sakura arrived back at the dorm, both playing cat's cradle with a length of string. Sakura's gut instinct was to back out before they saw her. Too late. They cheerfully turned towards her to greet her… and then their smiles fell onto the floor.

"S-Sakura! Your face!" Kaoru cried.

"What happened?"

"I'm ok!" Sakura said quickly as the two girls rushed to surround her. "It's worse than it looks – I'm fine. Really."

"But what happened?" Aki demanded, whipping her handkerchief from her sleeve to dab at Sakura's blood streaked cheek. "You're _bleeding_, Sakura. Did you fall?" Then she seemed to hesitate. "Was it Kakashi?"

Sakura shook her head firmly. "No! I ran into Toshio, that's all. He's made his feelings pretty clear on Kakashi, though."

"If he made you bleed, that's worse than usual," Kaoru said hesitantly. "You didn't try to stand up to him, did you? That just makes it worse."

Sakura sighed miserably. "Just breathing wrong would piss that guy off," she said. "Do we have any ointment? I don't want this to scar…"

The girls hastily cleaned her cheek and stuck a plaster over the thin scratch. Kaoru fussed and complained and together she and Sakura bitched about Toshio, listing his many faults and inventing several more for him. Only Aki remained quiet as she took away Sakura's bloodstained yukata and handed her a new one.

"Do you think Kakashi will be upset because of your face?" Kaoru suddenly asked.

"I'll just tell him I slipped over in the garden, or something," Sakura shrugged as Aki glanced sharply at her. "He can't be too bothered about imperfections if he picked a pregnant girl though, huh?"

"I guess not," Kaoru said.

The dark-haired girl stood and made her way towards the door. Sakura looked at her. "Aki, where are you going?"

"I have a few jobs to do before lunch," she explained. "I won't be long.

Sakura shrugged and turned back to Kaoru. "And his penis is tiny!"

"I _know_!" Kaoru agreed. "It's kinda bent too…"

* * *

"When are we going back to Konoha?"

Kakashi glanced down at the dog walking beside him. "Not for a while yet. Is there a problem?"

"Not a problem as such," it muttered, tongue lolling as it trotted. "But there's a lot of wolves around here… and the heat is killing us. I miss winter. Don't they have it here?"

"Sure, it's coming. But this is about as cold as it gets, Shiba," Kakashi told him, stopping along the sandy bank of the lake. He pointed to a stick on the ground. "How's that one?"

"It'll do." The dog rooted it out of the long grasses and skipped back to offer it to Kakashi. He clasped the damp piece of rotting wood in his hand and threw it as hard as he could over the lake. Shiba barked joyfully and plunged headfirst into the water.

And when Kakashi threw things, it was a few minutes before the dog returned. "Again!" Shiba begged, dropping the stick before Kakashi's feet.

Obligingly, Kakashi picked it up again and threw it with all his might. Shiba tracked its progress carefully, even though it was a mere dot by the time it hit the water, and then once again threw himself into the lake.

Kakashi took a seat on a rock to watch, but his mind was a million miles away. It usually was on the best of days, but lately it was hard to concentrate on _anything_. It was probably the headaches that caused this, but then it was probably Sakura that caused the headaches. He rubbed his eyes and sighed.

Scuffing footsteps on the path behind him made him turn. He was slightly surprised to see the familiar face of Aki approaching him, but he didn't react. Maybe she was going to the doctor's house? Maybe not. Her eyes was fixed on him, and she was leaving the path to walk across the sand bank towards him.

Even at this distance he could see the tense, unsettled expression on her face. She was wary of him, which was probably understandable, but it reminded him of what Sakura had said last night about his clan. The upper house loved him because he was one of them, but the branch families were treated no better than servants.

She was right, but what could he do to change that, when Aki herself stopped and bowed before him as if he was nothing more to her than a guest. "Kakashi-sama," she began quietly. "I hope I'm not bothering you."

"I'm not busy, Aki," he said. "And don't call me –sama. I've never liked that."

She hesitated, frowning in confusion. "Alright, sir," she said, which wasn't much better.

He looked out at the lake and squinted. Shiba was just about catching up to the stick at last. "Is there something you want?"

"No, sir," she said, twisting her hands before her. "But I remember you asked me a while ago to tell you if anything happened to Sakura… or if someone did anything to her."

Kakashi turned his head to her quickly. "Something's happened to Sakura?"

"She's safe," Aki told him quickly, "but I thought you should know that Toshio has attacked her."

"_Attacked_ her?" he repeated.

"Yes. At least twice now. Just a few minutes ago she returned to our room bleeding. Not badly, but she looked upset." Aki looked at him, blushing in embarrassment. "I thought you should know… though it's probably not important. But, maybe you can do something?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Do something? What is it you want me to do?"

"I-I I'm not asking you to do anything," she stuttered. "But Toshio-sama harasses many of the staff. Maybe you could talk to him or something?"

A long silence passed as he just stared at her. In that time, Shiba waded back to shore with his stick and sat down next to Kakashi to regard their visitor. "Hi, there," he said, around his mouthful of stick.

Aki, to her credit, only quailed a little bit. "Hello," she whispered back.

Shiba wagged his tail. "Would you like to play fetch with me-"

"Stop it," Kakashi snapped at the dog, whose ears abruptly sank. He looked back at Aki, and his scowl smoothed into a smile. "Talk with Toshio? Yes. I can do that. I'll have a nice little talk with him later about his behaviour, and we'll see if we can't get these little misunderstandings straightened out. Ok?"

Aki bowed with an enormous gasp of relief. "Thank you, Kakashi-sama." That was probably one habit she wouldn't drop around him. When she straightened shot a hesitant look towards the lake. "Oh… maybe you shouldn't let your dog swim in there. They say there's a monster."

Great. Folk superstitions. He watched her jog away through hooded eyes and brought a hand to his mouth to rub his lips.

"Uh oh." Shiba peered up at him. "You've got that look."

"No, I haven't."

"You're planning to kill someone," the dog pointed out. "I can feel it. Half this estate with a gram of chakra can probably feel it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kakashi said calmly, getting to his feet. "I'm just going to have a little chat with Toshio later."

"A chat?" Shiba said dubiously.

"A chat isn't a chat if it doesn't end in rectal bleeding." The man stretched his arms above his head. "Who's guarding Sakura today, by the way?"

"Pakkun."

"Go and take over from him, and send him to my room. I need a chat with him too."

Shiba hesitated, not sure he could do that to a fellow pack member. "Uh…"

"Do it."

"…'es, boss."

* * *

The moment Pakkun materialised in his master's room, he was forced to duck a very swift swipe for his collar. Alarmed, he skidded under the bed where even Kakashi's long arms couldn't reach him.

"Oi. I want a word with you," Kakashi ground out, on his hands and knees beside the bed. "Don't you dare hide from me."

"Shiba said you were going to rip my-"

"Get out here."

"I'd rather stay here if it's all the same to you." Pakkun settled down with his head on his paws. "I don't even know what I've done this time."

"You," Kakashi said, pointing at him, "are supposed to tell me if something happens to Sakura."

A look of sudden understanding lit Pakkun's face. "Ah," he said. "Well, um, there's a reason for that."

"Which is?"

"She told me not to tell you."

"And since when do you take orders from her instead of me?"

"It wasn't an order, it was a request," Pakkun sighed. "And can you blame her? She's been emasculated as a warrior; it's natural to be a little embarrassed by that without everyone and their dog drawing attention to it. She had the situation under control anyway… and when it got serious, I intervened. It's not a big deal."

"She was attacked before this too apparently – why didn't you tell me about that?"

"Because… you'd react like this?"

Nothing would be gained by strangling Pakkun – and he had to say it over and over to himself repeatedly to keep from reaching under the bed. Instead he attempted to take a calming breath and asked. "Is she hurt?"

"Not as such. I swear, Kakashi, she was ok. I was more worried about the boy. She'd have killed him if I'd been a little slower."

Kakashi grunted and pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. "If she was going to kill him, you should have let her."

"Like that wouldn't blow up in her face," the dog retorted, crawling into the light again. "And whatever you're thinking of doing. Don't."

Kakashi scowled. "There's no justice in this world if no one break's that brat's nose."

"There _is_ no justice in the world or you'd have been locked up a long time ago," Pakkun said dryly. "But you can't do anything to him. From the look of things, when he's humiliated he blames the girls for it. He attacked Sakura because he thinks she's mating with you. What do you think he'll do if you fight him over it?"

"Stop?" Kakashi guessed dimly.

"That's not how minds like his work."

The dog was right. He didn't like it, but this was no time to act irrationally. There was nothing to gain from impulsively trying to punish Toshio for his crimes, because the brief pleasure it promised would be overshadowed by the repercussions. He could only sigh and hang his head as a tired, unpleasant shudder ran through his bones. "What's the point in saying I could protect her when my actions are so limited?"

Pakkun scratched himself behind the ear. "You want my opinion?"

"No."

"Turn her loose. Send her back to Konoha where she can't do any harm, and no one can do any harm to her."

Kakashi shook his head. "Then everyone will know what I've done. I'll never be able to go back."

"Yes. I keep telling you, you can't stay a pacifist in this conflict, you _have_ to pick a side. For your own sake, you should choose your clan, because the second Sakura gets out of here you'll be a wanted man, and she's getting out of here whether you like it or not. It's just a matter of time. I have no interest in seeing you imprisoned, Kakashi."

"Things are fine as they are. I have Iwa running in circles, Karasu is too cautious to employ his contacts now, and Sakura's a convincing servant. I just need time… I just need to win her over and make her see things from my perspective-"

"Good luck. Her head's harder than Bull's."

"But if I could get her to keep her silence, I could go back to Konoha with her. We could…" He sighed. "We could even pick up where we left off…"

Pakkun gazed at him. "She doesn't want anything to do with you, Kakashi," he said softly. "Don't pin all your hopes on the chance of her having a change of heart. I like Wild Orchid as much as anyone, but you can't trust her. Females who are scorned like this… they don't forgive so easily."

"I know the situation," Kakashi said flatly. "So don't tell me my own business."

"Just making sure you know it."

"Go back to watching Sakura. But if anything happens again, you _tell _me."

"Uh hum."

Pakkun quickly trotted out into the corridor, leaving Kakashi alone to assemble his thoughts. He was calmer now, but still angry. If he wanted to keep his cool, it would be wise to avoid taking dinner with his family and their hosts… one glimpse of Toshio and Kakashi might just lunge across the table for his throat.

But Kakashi _had_ to see his face. He had to see exactly how a man looked, knowing what kind of shit he was.

That evening he took a seat next to Karasu and Reika and tried hard to concentrate on staring at his placemat. Food was placed before him, but he only picked at it. His gaze kept drifting around the dining room's walls, looking for a certain pink-haired maid. The only one he saw was a pale cat-eyed girl who he could tell from one look was nothing as sweet as his Sakura. Where was she? His chakra signature told him she was somewhere below, probably in the undercroft, but was she ok? Had the run-in with Toshio upset her so much she couldn't show her face to anyone?

Naturally his gaze slid across the table to Toshio himself. The boy – because that's all he was really – was talking with one of Reika's sisters. He was making her laugh and bat her eyelashes, and for all appearances he looked like a charming, easily likeable young man.

Kakashi watched him slip between conversation with those around him. He spoke to his mother, talked to his father, snapped at his younger sisters for pulling faces at each other, and when he looked up to see Kakashi staring at him, he scowled deeply. That lovely, well-adjusted façade slipped to reveal some of the ugliness beneath. He stared back, waiting for Kakashi to look away. He didn't.

It was only when Reika's sister spoke to him again that Toshio was forced to look away.

Karasu was showing the twins how to fold paper placemats into kunai and frogs, but he pulled his attention away long enough to ask, "Has he offended you somehow?"

Kakashi ground his teeth. "He beats and rapes the staff," he said shortly, picking up his cup of sake. "Tell Reika's sister to stay the hell away from him."

"He won't dare mistreat one of our girls. He's too scared of me to even touch little Aki," Karasu said dismissively, shifting his attention back to the naughty twins who were trying to stab the paper amphibians with the paper weapons. "No, that's not how you kill something. Stab down from above, decisively!"

"It would be better if we had real kunai…"

Kakashi didn't get a chance to pressure him more on the matter of Toshio because his aunt chose that moment to lean over and whisper to him. "Kakashi, dear, you really should eat something. You don't look well."

He looked down at his plate of untouched food.

"Don't want to offend our honoured hosts, do you?" Karasu reminded over the twins' chants of '_die die die!' _as they stabbed their frogs with real kunai that seemed to have materialised from nowhere. Karasu was obviously not someone who saw the innate problem in handing deadly implements to small, psychotic children.

Kakashi forced himself to eat, but the rice and meat was hard to swallow. There was nothing wrong with the food, only it was difficult to do something as normal as _eating_ when he could feel his hand's shaking. It was one thing for Toshio to behave as if nothing had happened. It was nearly impossible for Kakashi to do the same.

Rather than stay and drink with the rest, he made his way back to his room. There he lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling with his hands folded behind his head.

_Don't_. The word echoed in his head. _You'll only regret it. Don't._

Shiba came by and tried to coax him into another game of fetch, before drifting away dejectedly when Kakashi didn't respond. The man didn't move until exactly nine minutes past eleven when he felt Sakura's chakra outside his door. She knocked once before letting herself inside.

Kakashi was on his feet in a second, stalking to the partition door to see her.

Sakura froze at his sudden appearance, blinking at him in bemusement, and he belatedly realised he _had_ sort of sprang out at her. But none of that mattered the second he saw the plaster – the one on her right cheek about an inch below her eye. It was flesh-toned, but the dark brown stain of blood had soaked through to the other side.

"What happened to you?" he asked tightly.

She lifted a hand to her cheek, looking thoughtful. "I tripped in the garden. Those roots are death traps."

Something snapped so hard inside him it was almost audible.

He pushed away from the doorframe and around Sakura, ignoring her confused look, until he was storming down the corridor. Pakkun appeared beside him, running to keep up. "Don't – you'll be sorry!" he warned.

"I'll never be less sorry for anything in my life!" he snarled back, dismissing the dog with a hand sign and finally ridding himself of that irritating voice of reason. He swung up three flights of stairs and swept through the corridors to the east wing where the family slept. Eleven o'clock. The little brat ought to be tucking himself up in bed right around now.

As he closed in on the room, he drew a throwing kunai from the halter around his thigh. Every step brought him closer. He could see soft lights glowing inside through the paper thin doors. Without hesitation he thrust open the door and located his prey.

The younger man was sitting at his desk, half dressed in a loose shirt and pants. He'd been in the process of writing something, but the moment he heard the _thwack _of the door, he'd turned sharply.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.

Kakashi lifted his arm and threw the kunai.

There was a startled yelp as Toshio pushed back from the desk so hard his chair fell over. The blade struck the wall where his head had been and wedged deep. Kakashi dragged a hand over his face. "Ahh," he sighed. "I missed."

"W-What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Toshio all but screamed from his position on the floor.

That wouldn't do. His parents were sleeping two rooms away and Kakashi didn't want anyone intruding on his _lesson_. He marched forward, grabbed the boy by his sleeve, and tugged so hard the garment ripped at the seams. Before Toshio could shout again, Kakashi thrust the cloth into his mouth and tied it so tightly behind the back of his head that the fabric cut into his cheeks.

"What are you doing to Toshio?" inquired a little voice behind him.

Kakashi looked back at the door where two dark heads peeped in. The twins. They'd obviously heard the scream and had emerged to check it out. No naughtiness went on in this house without being approved by these two girls. "Go to bed," he told them.

"Can't we watch?" one of them asked.

"Go to bed or I'll do to same to you," he threatened.

Neither of them moved. Kakashi sighed and got to his feet again, moving to close the door. But before it slid shut, he plainly heard one of them whisper, "_Don't forget to kick him in the privates._"

As he heard the two girls scamper away down the hall he turned back to his quarry – who was hurriedly trying to tug his gag loose. The moment he realised Kakashi's attention was back on him, his efforts doubled. "None of that," Kakashi drawled, reaching down to him to grab his wrists. "I won't have you screaming. Haven't you noticed that tends to spoil the fun of things?"

Toshio glared and fought him, but Kakashi was bigger and stronger. With very little effort he pushed the younger man onto his front and brought his hands together. He took the belt Toshio had removed earlier and hung on the end of his bed, using it to chain his wrists together in what he hoped was a deeply uncomfortable knot of leather. Grabbing the back of his shirt, Kakashi lifted him and slung him easily onto the bed. He paused only to pull his favourite kunai from the wall before climbing up onto the bed and straddling Toshio before he could even think of scurrying away.

"Comfortable?" Kakashi asked, noticing he clearly wasn't. "Have you ever done it this way, Toshio-kun? Bondage is my personal favourite, but I realise everyone has their own kinks. To each their own, right?"

Toshio shook his head frantically and struggled. Kakashi closed a hand around his throat, and all motion ceased. "You'll have to show me how this is done then," he said. "You're the one with experience in these matters, after all."

Something that sounded awfully like _go to hell_ clogged in Toshio's throat. Kakashi's eyes narrowed and his hand lashed out, smacking him across the face. "That's how it goes right?" he asked when the boy's eyes rolls, probably seeing stars. "If they resist, hit them, until finally they don't want to resist anymore."

Toshio lay still, panting, seething. Kakashi tilted his head, taking a moment to savour the feel of his victim's mute anger and helplessness. Then he began tugging Toshio's loose shirt apart to expose his chest before starting on the buttons of his pants.

The struggles started again afresh, real fear now glazing Toshio's eyes. "What are you doing?" he gasped around the gag. "Stop!"

Kakashi shoved the boys pants down off his hips. "What, you don't want this? After the eyes you were giving me at dinner?" he asked.

Toshio's head tossed from side to side emphatically.

"Well… tough," Kakashi said vacantly, looking down. "Those are very nice underpants. Were you expecting company tonight, perhaps?"

The eyes were wide and glazed, but there was still a hint of rebellion there. Kakashi smiled. "Ah. You _were,_ weren't you? It wasn't me, was it?"

More incomprehensible noises. Kakashi ignored them hooked his fingers into the waistband of the briefs. "Now let's get to the point shall we? Let's see…" With one tug he pushed them down. He paused a moment to stare. "Oh. A bit disappointing, but nevermind. I'm not sure how I'm going to get any pleasure out of that though. Is it yours, or just a fungal infection?"

He looked up at Toshio's face to see a spreading red flush of humiliation. That was more like it. Kakashi smiled lazily and reached up with the kunai to cut his gag. He wouldn't scream now. He wouldn't risk anyone coming upon them like _this_. Pressing the tip of the kunai under his jaw, he asked softly, "How do you feel right now?"

But Toshio could only pant and glare.

"Angry?" Kakashi supplied.

The younger man ground his teeth. "Yes, I'm angry."

"Humiliated?"

When he didn't answer, Kakashi pressed the blade a little harder. "Yes. Humiliated."

"Scared."

"I'm not scared of you-"

"You should be." Kakashi pressed to hard, causing thin ribbons of blood to bloom beneath the kunai. "You have no idea what I'm capable of or just how far I'm prepared to go to make a point. Whatever you're feeling now, take careful note of it. This helplessness you feel, and so much shame you want to cry… this is what you're doing to other people."

Despite his frantic expression, Toshio frowned. Did he not understand? Or did he just not care?

"You hurt a girl today," Kakashi told him.

Toshio's eyes flickered to the side, the sign of someone searching their memory. Kakashi growled and tightened his grip on the boy's throat so much he heard his breath begin to rasp. "You bastard! She was half your size and carrying a baby! But you've hurt so many you can't even keep track, can you?! Well that's going to change. From now on, if you touch a girl," he traced a finger over Toshio's cheek, "I touch you. If you hit a girl, I hit you." He punctuated with another hard smack across the check he'd caressed. "If you cut a girl's face, I cut yours."

Toshio yelped as the kunai snicked his cheek, in exactly the same place he'd scratched Sakura.

Kakashi squeezed his jaw, not allowing him to turn away. "And if you rape another girl," he said, looking meaningfully at his kunai. "Well… I've always been curious about sticking hard things in tender places. I could make you wish you were never born."

The whimper was music to his ears. It hadn't taken much. After three years working in the interrogation squad, Kakashi was very much holding back. If he really wanted to punish the boy there was a whole catalogue of cruel and unusual treatments to choose from. But he didn't want to go overboard. He just wanted him to have a little taste of what it felt like to be the one held against his will.

The music was interrupted by footsteps. Kakashi looked up in time to see the door slide back to reveal another late night visitor. This was probably the one Toshio had been expecting. The one he'd been chatting up at dinner.

"Midori," he greeted Reika's sister calmly, as if he wasn't holding a half-naked man to a bed with his hands around his face.

Midori looked confused only for a moment, then deeply disappointed. "Oh," she said flatly. "Sorry to interrupt. Don't be too rough with him, Kakashi." She began to shut the door again. "Night."

"Goodnight, Midori," he called, waiting until her footsteps faded before sitting up to look at his handiwork. Toshio looked a state. Blood seeped down his neck and across his cheek. His manhood was limp and lifeless. Kakashi couldn't blame him. This was probably the least arousing moment in _both_ their lives. "I think we understand one another," he said decisively, finally climbing off him. "Remember what I said and hopefully I won't have to pay you another visit."

He wiped the bloodied edge of his kunai on the bed's coverlet before tucking it back into the halter. Looking back at the motionless, dazed boy on still lying there, he narrowed his eyes. "Oh. If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "along with anyone else you tell. This'll just be our little secret, ok?"

At this point he realised he probably didn't even have to threaten Toshio. He doubted there was anyone he would tell about this. Total humiliation was a cold, cruel thing. Kakashi almost felt sorry for him, so by the door he stopped and looked back at him. "Cheer up," he told him. "Compared to some of the things I've done to people, you got off lightly."

He shut the door and quietly walked away.

Back when his students had listened to him, or at least pretended to, he'd tried to impress upon them the black and white rule that no two wrongs made a right. Revenge simply bred more pain and vengeance until it was a circle without an end, and that was all they needed to know. But in the adult world of all its shades of greys, there were people who were too removed from human empathy to understand the consequences of their actions unless they felt them firsthand.

This was revenge, yes. It was also a warning. Toshio might not understand the difference between right and wrong, morality and immorality, but he understood an eye for an eye. As long as he believed Kakashi could and would make good on his threats, he would not harm another girl in this estate.

That had to be enough for now.

* * *

Sakura stroked a hand along the back of the pug sitting beside her on the couch. Every now and then he sighed, his wrinkled cheeks puffing and flapping unhappily. "Kakashi, you idiot…" he muttered.

She continued to stroke him gently, but the feel of his short, coarse fur was not as nice as the luxurious soft coats of her cats. Dogs didn't purr either, and she was beginning to miss Dokko rather strongly.

The door jerked open and they both jumped. Kakashi slipped inside, sparing them a brief glance before heading for the bedroom. Sakura stood swiftly. "Pakkun told me everything. What did you do to him?"

Kakashi stripped off his jacket and weapon halters to sling them in a chair beside the bed. "I pulled down his pants and laughed at his penis," he said without turning to her.

"At least be serious," she snapped.

He scowled and glanced at her again, but was unable to hold his gaze to hers for longer than a second. "He won't bother you again."

"You idiot – if you piss off Toshio, he'll take it out on someone like Kaoru!" she hissed. "If you're just trying to ingratiate yourself towards me-"

"Ingratiate? I didn't even know what I was doing until I was doing it! But he won't touch you _or_ Kaoru," Kakashi told her shortly. "I made sure of it."

"How do you know?"

"Just trust me on this!"

Sakura fell silent. Trust? That was rich. But here was her chance… he'd reached out for trust, asked for her to have a little faith in him, and though her gut reaction told her to blow a raspberry in his face the cynical side told her to back down. Who knew? Maybe she _could_ trust him on this. Either way, here was where she could begin to gain _his_ trust in her.

"Alright," she said quietly. "But if anything happens to Kaoru-"

"Nothing will happen to your friend. I promise."

Giving a short, satisfied nod, she went back to sit on the couch with Pakkun and resumed stroking him. Kakashi followed her, confused. "You believe me?" he asked incredulously.

She shrugged. "I'm too tired to argue. I'll take your word for it," she told him stiffly. "Can I just go to bed, please?"

Kakashi glanced over her, eyes lingering on her stomach. "You can take my bed again," he said, and managed to make it sound almost like an order.

Sakura sighed as if she had no choice, but she couldn't pass up another night on the softest bed she'd ever slept in. "Alright," she agreed, getting to her feet again. As she passed Kakashi, he touched her elbow, and the contact made her whole arm tingle.

"What about your face?" he asked.

"Well, you obviously know I _didn't_ trip over," she said. "Sorry I lied."

"No – I mean, do you want me to heal it for you?"

Very cautiously, she wrinkled her nose at him. "No offense, sensei, but you're no medic."

"Give me _some_ credit," he murmured. "I know the basics, and I haven't watched you all these years with the sharingan without learning a thing or two."

Sakura hesitated, torn. It was only a minor cut, something a beginner could probably heal. And it wasn't like she wanted a scar…

"Ok," she agreed softly, and allowed herself to be escorted to sit on the bed.

Kakashi sat beside her, his knee touching hers. She was acutely aware of even the slightest contact as always, but she did nothing as he reached up to peel away the plaster from her cheek. He did it ever so carefully, as if scared of hurting her. Men were like that. In strength and speed and aggression they left women behind, but give them a hairbrush or tell them to whip a plaster off, and they suddenly became as timid as mice.

Plaster off, he looked at the cut. "It's stopped bleeding," he observed.

"I know."

He cupped his left hand to her cheek, pressing the other around the back of her head to keep her still, and in that second before he summoned his chakra, she could hardly breathe.

"Carefully," she told him, far too aware of the gentle way he held her. "Just concentrate on the edges. It's like Velcro… you have to push it together and smooth it until it gels… like sticky porridge."

"Velcro, porridge, make up your mind." His brow was furrowed in supreme concentration. For someone with extraordinarily precise chakra control, this was difficult. For someone whose control was just above average, this was one of the hardest things he'd ever been asked to do. Hopefully his mind was totally on the task. Unlike Sakura's, which was thinking more about the little finger tickling the back of her nape than his progress.

Gradually the glow of chakra blinding her right eye faded and she blinked rapidly to clear the sun spots. Kakashi's hands fell away, a little too slowly, and he smiled faintly behind his mask. "All gone."

Sakura looked towards the mirror and craned to see for herself. There was nothing. Even running her finger over her cheek revealed no dimpled line, nor any build up of rough skin that usually happened with newbie medics. She looked at Kakashi, only faintly surprised considering it _was_ the infamous copy ninja. "Not bad," she said.

"You're a good teacher," he told her.

A bashful smile broke out on her face before she could stop it. She managed to squash it abruptly. "Thank you," she said, aiming for a cool, detached tone.

He looked at her a moment before tilting his head. "Is there anything else you need before I go?" he asked her. "Three more boiled eggs, perhaps?"

Another smile broke free. "Actually, I think I'll be alright tonight. But thank you anyway."

He nodded, echoing her smile. "Sleep tight then," he said as he rose.

"Night," she whispered, watching him as he slipped through the partition door and shut it behind him. Then she watched his silhouette cross the wall until he plainly flopped down on the couch.

Sakura realised she was still smiling.

_Stop that_, her inner voice lashed out in anger. _Don't forget where you are and _why_ you're still here._

Conflicted, and neither happy nor unhappy, Sakura switched off the lamp and loosened her clothes to settle down beneath the covers. Her hand automatically stroked over her stomach, exploring the significant change in her body. Day to day, she couldn't tell the difference, but only two months ago she had been completely flat. So much change over so little time.

_Everything _had changed… even Kakashi. Where before she'd been convinced he was irredeemable, moments of his old self made it all too easy to forget she was a prisoner here, held by his whim.

She drifted off to sleep, not thinking of babies, or rings scratching her face, but of a mild, hesitant smile she would never be able to forget.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Ghosts_


	27. Ghosts

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Six: Ghosts

* * *

_Will you miss all the beauty,_

_When you finally go blind?_

* * *

Shikamaru rolled the lump of chewing gum to the other side of his jaw and blew out a frosted breath of air. His nose was cold. His feet were cold. He'd lost feeling in his hands some time ago, but here he still was, standing at the side of a crossroad on a boulder to see over the heads of the people on the flowing path. They moved in a steady stream – a thousand of them – their feet churning the snow to slush and their breath fogging the evening air.

A little girl in wellies slipped over onto her hands a few feet away. Shikamaru was about to step down to help when a blonde dressed in white fatigues beat him to it. She helped the child up and dried her small, muddy hands with her pristine scarf before gently ushering her back into line.

Ino looked up at him. "Where the hell are we supposed to put all these people?" she asked in an undertone. "There's barely enough room in Konoha as it is."

He shrugged, keeping a watchful eye on the frozen, white landscape around them. Up ahead was one of the great bridges crossing the fire country's largest river. Once over that, it was only a couple more miles to Konoha. "What else can we do?" he said flatly. "Iwa attacked their village. They don't have anywhere else to go."

Ino didn't look pleased. "We're already on rations," she grumbled. "Why can't someone else take some refugees?"

"Don't be selfish. How would you like to be that little girl?"

"As long as she brought her own food…"

On the other side of the road, Genma jogged past calling mild encouragement for everyone to keep up, they were almost there. There was no real reason to rush other than to escape the cold, as this deep in the fire country it was unlikely to come across any errant Iwa squads. Shikamaru kept his eyes peeled nevertheless. The only movement came from the trees in the form of a couple of birds. He looked over, recognising them as crows from their harsh calls. He counted them.

"One for sorrow, two for mirth," he murmured, "three for a wedding, four for a birth."

"Counting crows?" Ino followed his gaze. "I count nine. What does nine represent?"

"Something about hell, I don't know." He squinted his eyes. Was it really nine birds? In the skeletons of the trees it was easy to make the jet black birds out, particularly against the white sky, but… "There's ten."

"No, there isn't," Ino said dismissively.

"Yeah there is, look," he pointed. "There's a white one."

She looked curiously, not believing him, but after a few seconds she saw the same snowy shape he did, sitting silently amongst its other, much darker friends. "I've never seen a white crow before," she said, surprised.

Shikamaru chewed his gum silently. Something about what she'd said tickled a far distant memory. Seeing the bird had seemed novel a moment ago, until Ino had described it aloud. _White crow_. Why did that sound familiar?

It was probably nothing.

"What does ten mean then?" Ino asked him.

"The devil himself," he said quietly, "that's what ten means." He looked back at the refugees, noticing the last few stragglers had finally passed. He waved a hand at Ino as he dropped from the boulder. "Come on. We better keep moving."

* * *

Sakura sighed, stretching her legs out before her so her toes left the shadow of the veranda to touch the sunlight. They glowed a soft white. It would probably be snowing back in Konoha, but here it was midday and the sun shone stronger than ever. The air was a little cooler than when she'd arrived, but still humid, and she could still sit outside on the porch like this in a yukata designed for summer.

Her only company was a cat called 'Blackie' – quite an imaginative name for an animal that was snowy white. She lay on her side, chewing and pawing at a loose thread from Sakura's sleeve, purring loudly whenever the girl scratched her chin. The cat wasn't a nekonin; she was only from the kitchens. But Sakura felt a kind of kinship with her anyway. They were both, after all, pregnant.

"I don't understand it," the cook had confided in Sakura. "There aren't any male cats on the estate. The only tom on the estate was neutered last year so Kuro must have wandered pretty far to meet a handsome boy…"

Somehow Sakura doubted that, especially since Dokko had been around about the same time Kuro had been rendezvousing with her mystery tom. Evidently he'd been doing more than just spying on the household and catching mice in the pantry.

"Oh, Kuro," she sighed to her companion. "The world is full of deadbeat fathers."

But unlike _her_ cats, Kuro didn't respond. It was unlikely she understood any of the noises coming from Sakura's mouth, and the girl sighed all over again, missing her nekonin, missing her friends… and just plain missing conversation, period.

The doctor had finally told her to cut back on her duties, and Aki had taken that advice to heart. Now Sakura was stranded in the dorm for hours at a time, trying to ignore how lonely such isolation was. She'd been told to relax and take it easy, but for a kunoichi who'd been working every day of her life since puberty, there was nothing_ less_ relaxing than sitting about feeling useless. In fact she'd rather be off beating rugs with Kaoru and laughing about the clouds of dust than staying behind all by herself.

She didn't even see much of Kakashi, despite spending every night in his bed. After the first few nights she'd managed to work out her timing exactly so she hardly ever had to interact with him. He was always the last to arrive at night and the first to leave in the morning… all Sakura had to do was go to bed the minute she arrived, and she didn't even have to see his face. On the odd occasion when she'd arrived in his room to find him already there, she had made excuses about being too tired to do anything but roll into bed. He took her word for it too easily, and it occurred to her that her power over him in this way was immense. She could say that pregnant women needed honeyed grapes fed to them by half-naked bronzed men, and he'd probably head out immediately to buy some self-tanning lotion.

In all truth, he probably suspected she was avoiding him. But whatever he thought, it wasn't _entirely_ out of antipathy towards him. Yes, just seeing his masked face made her tense and angry and it was hard to be around him after all that had happened. And yes, she still dedicated most of her night's sleep to dreams where strange and horrible things happened to him that left her with a profoundly satisfied feeling when she woke up. However, she also avoided him because he worried her.

She worried that all he had to do was smile and she would want to smile back. If she allowed him to do those patient, thoughtful things for her – whether it be healing tiny cuts or fetching her midnight snacks – she might start to think he was the good man she'd fallen for last July. For the sake of self-preservation, she had to remain immune to her hormones. She _didn't_ want to be the kind of girl who would forgive a man for killing her grandmother just because he had a sweet smile.

He hadn't killed her grandmother, but putting the whole village at risk was perhaps just as bad.

And yet she couldn't deny that he had done _some _good around this place. She'd noticed it first when, a week after he'd done whatever he'd done to Toshio, she passed the heir in question in a corridor. He'd glanced at her once and then ignored her. She hadn't dared believe this was anything but the calm before the storm, but as the days passed, she was forced to acknowledge that Toshio had been de-fanged. Even when she'd bumped into him in the secluded library as she was dusting shelves, all he had done was walk past her and out again.

After a while, Kaoru noticed too. "Toshio-sama's a bit quiet lately. I don't think he's himself," she had whispered to Sakura one afternoon. That was when Sakura knew Kakashi had been true to his word. She didn't know exactly what he'd _done_ to Toshio to make him back down (she was betting surgical removal of his testicles), but it had certainly worked.

The wave of gratitude and relief she felt towards him when she realised had almost made her want to wrap her arms around him and kiss his cheek. He deserved a thank you, if not for herself than for Kaoru. Then just every now and then she turned her head and saw the shape of a dog shadowing her every move, and she remembered that, whatever her feelings, she was just a prisoner here.

She hadn't given up on escape. Sometimes she wandered off into the forest a little way to see how far she could go before someone – _anyone_ – stopped her. The limit was about one hundred feet before Pakkun or even Bull seemed to appear out of nowhere to ask where she was going. "Just going for a walk," she always said, and then was forced to take along whichever canine had appeared because you couldn't go for a walk and _not_ invite a dog along, even if they mostly just invited themselves.

Direct escape was becoming an increasing impossibility with her condition anyway. At a little over five months along, what had once been a slinky cat-like walk (according to Sakura's opinion, no one else's) had become a distinct waddle. So the idea of waddling all the way back to Konoha was, at this point, laughable.

So instead of digging tunnels, she was on the look-out for any way of contacting Konoha. The birds in the mews were out; none of them flew anywhere they weren't trained to fly to, and none of those places was near Konoha or any other outpost Sakura trusted enough to pass on a secret message.

The only other form of long distance contact was radio, but a few carefully phrased questions around the staff had revealed nothing promising. Radio transmission was too much like modern technology for the Zuru family. Their limit with up-to-date electronics was a couple of televisions in the guestrooms, but that was about it. The last radio in this place had been Sakura's and that had been effectively killed by the Hatake who had caught her using it, and any chance she might have had to fix it had been lost the day Kakashi had confiscated her backpack. She had looked for it in case he'd kept it for himself, but after a week of sussing out the nooks and crannies in his room she had to accept that it was gone. Either he'd buried it somewhere in the forest or just burned it to a crisp. She wasn't getting it back.

Her only chance remained in getting to Amegakure. Even though the place was a censorship nightmare and no sane person would ever think of that village as an excellent base of communications in an ordinary context, Sakura was out of options. It might be tricky to send a message from there, but it could at least be done. That was her only hope.

But her problem was getting there, and the worst part was knowing that every day she remained here, silenced and shut away, was another day cost to Konoha. With no contact line to the village, she was in the dark as to what was going on. Kakashi sent weekly reports to the Hokage through his summons, and she suspected he was often forging her handwriting to keep the woman satisfied that Sakura was safe, but whatever news he received in return he didn't share with her.

She knew there had been a major confrontation or two between Konoha and Iwa forces, but the details were hazy. She didn't know if her friends had been involved, or if they were even still alive. All she knew was what she overheard during the dinner conversations of the Hatake clan and the Zuru family, but they seemed to grow more and more tight-lipped as time went on. This alone made her realise _something_ was going on.

Sakura sank onto her back, hands resting lightly on her stomach. She hadn't thought it would be easy, being pregnant _and_ being on a mission, but her evolving priorities had surprised her. A few months ago she didn't think there would ever be a day she would want to stab Kakashi in the back, either literally or figuratively. Nor would she have believed she was beginning to care more about the subject of her expanding waistline than a war against her village. As much as she was determined to get word back to Konoha in order to _save_ them from the Syndicate, she was also beginning to suspect that if it came down to it… the safety of this unborn baby took precedence over her duty to the village. At the end of the day, Konoha had hundreds of highly trained professionals looking after it. The baby had only Sakura. Even if its existence scared her and she had every intention of putting its future in some other woman's more capable hands after it was born, for now it was her responsibility and she'd sooner die than let it come to harm.

Which was why she had to get it away from this place. Away from the Zuru family, away from the Hatake clan… away from Kakashi.

A tiny fluttering deep inside her made her hold her breath. Was it moving? She'd been noticing that strange feeling more often over the last couple of weeks, but she couldn't be sure if it was the baby or just her imagination. She was beginning to think it was the former, and it made it all the harder to keep a detached, impartial attitude to the baby when she could feel it moving like a real, living thing.

She reached out to stroke Kuro's furry ruff again. "You're lucky," she told the cat with a sigh. "By the time mine is born, yours will already be off hunting on their own."

Oh, to be as simple as a cat. Kuro didn't look too worried about war, or spying, or who'd fathered her kittens. She was concerned only with cuddles and warm places to sleep and a steady supply of food.

Eventually the heavy cat got up and waddled away, presumably having fulfilled her first two needs, she now planned to satisfy the third. Sakura's own break was coming to an end, so she pushed herself to her feet and headed off to help with the preparations for dinner. That at least would keep her busy for a while, even if it was just peeling carrots.

She only met back up with the other girls when it was time to serve. Kaoru was in a glorious mood, as seemed to be the case more often these days since Toshio's abuse had come to a mysterious end. By contrast, Yui was dark-eyed and scowling. She no longer even looked at Sakura. She might elbow past occasionally, but her new tactic was pretending the other girl didn't exist. In Sakura's opinion this was a vast improvement.

"Aki's busy outside," Kaoru told her. "It's just us three today."

So began the routine Sakura had grown used to. They brought the food to the antechamber of the dining room with the help of a few scullery maids and then gracefully went about serving the morning regulars.

Kakashi was there, rubbing his eye, and around him were most of his cousins. The Zuru family was arranged at the other end of the room, looking as tired and annoyed as ever with the exception of the twins. Sakura guessed the presence of all these guests were continually grating for the lord and lady, as they weren't so much guests as they were _gatecrashers_. Yet they couldn't be evicted. Sakura couldn't see how anyone could stand up to someone like Karasu and ask him to leave the premises, politely or otherwise.

But speaking of Karasu… Sakura looked around the room. He wasn't there. Normally he occupied a place beside Kakashi, but today that place was empty.

Something was up.

Sakura laid down a food tray for Zuru and then one for his wife. It was as she was laying two child sized trays for the twins that a sudden outburst made her jump.

"Is this _really_ necessary?"

It was Lord Zuru who had spoken. Sakura swivelled to look at him, and paled when she realised he was addressing _her. _

"This is obscene – have some dignity and remove yourself at once. Nobody wants to see _that_," he said harshly, looking away and gesturing a hand rudely at her as if she was too unsightly to see. It was very clear he wasn't referring to anything but her swollen stomach.

The following silence rang in her ears. She felt every single pair of eyes in the room fix on her like a hundred white hot spotlights, especially when she was the only one moving… rising carefully back to her feet, fingers pinching into her apron. Cold and clumsy, Sakura bowed apologetically. "I'm sorry, Zuru-sama," she managed to mumble through numb lips. She turned and walked out, her chest hurting too much to observe proper etiquette in opening and closing the door. She had to get out. Desperately, she had to get away from all those stares of pity and amusement and disgust.

She'd never been so _humiliated…_

She should have been angry. This wasn't her problem – it was Zuru's – she had nothing to be ashamed of. But the fear had always haunted her since the first time she'd noticed her body changing… _was she repulsive now?_ Sakura had always been confident in her looks. She knew she wasn't unattractive, and even on her worst days was passable.

But what about now? Was she so bad that she now _disgusted_ people?

She dashed her eyes with the back of her hand, hating herself for crying. Hormones. It had to be hormones. But she couldn't stop it hurting, and once she was halfway down the corridor away from the dining room, she stopped and leant against the wall for support. She was alone here, and she finally lost control of her snivels and snurches and put her head in her hands.

"Sakura."

_Shit._ He'd followed her. Sakura jumped away from the wall and tried to nonchalantly wipe her damp hands on her clothes. Keeping her back to Kakashi, she continued walking down the corridor.

"_Sakura._" He jogged to catch up with her.

"What?" she replied, in an extraordinarily normal voice.

He caught her by the shoulder, forcing her to stop and turn towards him. She tried to keep her face averted but the shiny tracks of tears on her cheeks were impossible to hide. She didn't need this. Being seen red-faced and tear-stained by Kakashi right now made it all the more harder to keep her emotions in check.

Momentarily lost for words, Kakashi released her shoulder. "He's wrong," he said. "He's just angry at a million other things right now, so he's taking it out on you."

There was that soft, compassionate tone she so dreaded. The one that made her want to believe and trust in everything he said. A soft sob tried to wrench free of her chest. "He's angry because he hired me to look good," she corrected him, "and now I don't."

"You look alright to me," he told her. "You-"

"I don't want you to pity me!" she snapped, stepping away from him as she tried to continue on her way again. "This is just chemicals in my blood making my face like this! Nothing more! I don't care if he thinks I look obscene – I don't care what _anyone_ thinks of me!"

Kakashi caught her shoulders again. She tried to shrug him off sharply, but he only pulled her against him. Faced with the wide, solid wall of his chest, Sakura panicked and tried to push him away. But she was losing; not to Kakashi, but to herself and how much _she_ wanted to be seduced by the comfort of his arms and the warmth of his body. Sobs choked her frame, Kakashi squeezed her closer, and then her face was pressed against his collar, crying and ashamed and totally unable to stop.

"He's wrong," he said again, his hand resting on the back of her head. "You're beautiful. Everyone can see that."

"Stop it," she gasped. It was just meaningless nonsense, trying to make her feel better. She didn't want him to tell her she was beautiful at a time when he was most likely to lie to stem her tears. "I'm fat!"

"You're normal, and just as you're supposed to be," he said. "Don't think for a second you're repulsive."

"I – I didn't say _repulsive! _I said _fat!_" She began to weep even harder. "You think I'm repulsive?!"

"_No. _I'm just guessing how you probably feel," he amended quickly. "Yes, you've gained weight and your old clothes don't fit and you're probably achy and sore all over the place, and there will always be people who aren't comfortable around expecting ladies, but you _are_ beautiful, Sakura. And I mean that from a totally impartial and objective standpoint, and not just because… you know…"

Not just because he'd done it to her?

"Why should I believe that?" she sniffed.

"Did you ever think Kurenai looked bad when she was pregnant?" he asked her.

Sakura thought back. She remembered how quickly Kurenai had expanded all those years ago, but never once had Sakura thought she looked fat, or repulsive, or ridiculous. But Kurenai was a different sort of woman. She'd always been soft and maternal, never looking more natural than when she was carrying her daughter.

Not for a second did Sakura think she was remotely comparable. She'd always been hard around the edges and sharp where Kurenai had been curvier. She worried she looked like nothing but a stork who'd swallowed a basketball.

She hiccupped and pressed her face to Kakashi's black vest again. He was useless. He couldn't make her feel better with his awkward words, but his embrace was one she had no will to break free from. Just a few more seconds. Once she could collect herself, she'd be able to loosen her hold and begin building a nice strong wall of separation between them again.

Footsteps further along the corridor made her flinch. She looked.

Karasu was stalking along the walkway towards them, maskless, tired, and bleak eyed. Like the flick of an emergency switch, Sakura's sobs dried up and she instinctively tried to step away from Kakashi. He wasn't letting go. Unable to get away and not knowing where else to look, she went back to hiding her face in his vest.

"What's wrong with her?" Karasu asked roughly as he passed.

"Zuru said she was fat," Kakashi replied.

"Then go on a diet, for god's sake," he muttered uncaringly, slamming his way into the dining room.

Sakura's mouth dropped open and wide, hurt eyes sought out Kakashi's as he desperately shook his head. "No – don't even listen to him," he whispered hurriedly. "You can't expect sensitivity where there's no sense-"

She could accept that. A man who waved around the head of one his cousins was one she could believe lacked thought and tact. Rather she was more concerned about his rough and weary appearance, and the fact he was arriving later than everyone else. She didn't think she'd even seen a more negative mood on him either. "What's going on?" she asked Kakashi. "What are you people planning now?"

"Ah…" Kakashi bore the expression of one who knew he'd been caught.

"_Kakashi_," she snapped, finally remembering herself enough to extricate herself from his arms. Her eyes were drying and her breathing had steadied, and she thanked the miracle of her mood swings that she now felt relatively calm. "_What_ are you up to?"

Before he could answer, men began filing out of the dining room. She doubted they'd finished their meals, but already they were being forced out – herded by their clan leader. As Karasu stepped back into the corridor he snapped an impatient finger at Kakashi the way she'd seen people snap at a dog or a child. "Come on. We need to prepare."

Kakashi began to move away. Without thinking, Sakura reached out to snag his sleeve. "What's going on?" she demanded quietly.

He sighed, looking sheepish and guilty and suddenly even more tired than Karasu. "We have a mission," he said impassively.

Sakura knew what that meant. "A mercenary mission?" she guessed. "Against Konoha?"

Kakashi shifted uncomfortably.

"You're going to attack Konoha!" she gasped. "Kakashi – don't you dare – I swear I'll kill you myself!"

"It's nothing direct," he promised. "It's unavoidable, and there's only so much action I can persuade Karasu from taking. In the long term, this is to everyone's benefit."

She shook her head at him. "What are you planning to do?" she demanded.

He looked distractedly over his shoulder at the departing men. "I can't talk about it. But we'll be back by tonight… so you can come to my room as usual."

"Kakashi," she begged, "this is crazy-"

"It can't be helped. And I promise that at least as long as I'm with them I can practice some damage control." His gaze wandered over her plaintive face and he gave another pained sigh. "Don't wait up for me, ok?"

And before she could protest any further, he stepped forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Sakura blinked in shock. Kakashi himself looked a little surprised at his own action, and slowly he slipped away from her, turning to catch up with the rest of his clan.

Either he'd done it to shock her into silence, or to play up to the idea they were lovers in front of witnesses… or just because he'd wanted too.

Flustered, Sakura pretended to brush her bangs aside in order to touch the spot he'd kissed, trying to find out if it was as hot as her tingling skin implied. It was remarkable how little it took to make her pulse beat a little fast, and remarkably stupid how she could nearly swoon after a peck to the forehead when they'd already achieved full intercourse many months ago.

It was also remarkable that this occupied her thoughts for the rest of the day, almost as much as the dread of his mission did.

* * *

Kakashi adjusted the armour plates along his forearms in the gathering dusk. A ninjato was strapped to his back, and the pouches and holsters around his waist, thigh, and right arm contained the rest of his favoured weaponry and accessories, along with several sheathes of marked paper.

Around him, eight other clan members preened and tested their gear. They were among the strongest in the clan, five from the upper house, and three from the closest branch families. His cousins, near and distant, and ones he was fond of.

"Seito, Takashi," he said softly to two dark-haired youths. "We're odd numbered, so I'll accompany you two."

"Yes, Kakashi-sama," they chorused, sounding pleased.

Feeling less enthusiastic, Kakashi turned to the white-haired man meditating at the base of one of the oldest trees in the garden. "We're ready," he told Karasu heavily.

The leader of the clan sat motionless with his eyes shut and his hands held in the form of the bird seal against his chest. "Cold feet?" he inquired to Kakashi.

"I'm not afraid to do what has to be done," Kakashi replied evenly.

"Good," Karasu took a long, deep breath. "Assume your positions."

The nine men lined up in formation before their leader and fitted the last piece of their uniform – a black, porcelain mask that covered the upper half of the face and protruded slightly in the form of a curving beak.

Kakashi formed the bird seal with his hands, as did the rest of the squad. A warm, sweet breeze trickled through the garden, shaking the leaves on the old tree above Karasu. The meditating man finally opened his eyes, surveyed the men before him, and then finished with a series of seals. "Go."

Then Kakashi was falling, plunging through twigs into heaped snow. The air invading his lungs was harsh and cold, a brutal change from just a breath ago. Crouching, he surveyed the wintry landscape around him for any sign of activity, but all he heard now was the soft thuds of his fellows landing in the snow around him. A wide, deep river flowed beneath a bridge several hundred metres away, but its surface was frozen and the water running beneath it was silent.

A harsh caw made him look up. A lone white crow flapped its wings in the tree they'd tumbled through. Karasu was telling them to get going.

The nine masked men straightened and joined into pairs.

"There are five great bridges leading over this river," Kakashi said, plucking a twig out of his hair, "including this one. Destroy them all and we destroy Konoha's biggest trade routes. The plan is to isolate them. They're already on rations after the destruction of the food stores by our operatives. Isolating them further will almost certainly push them to their limit. You two teams will take the two bridges to the south, and us two teams will take the river bending east. Return here as soon as you've accomplished your objective, and we'll destroy this last one before our exit. Agreed?"

The squad nodded.

"Then let's go."

They set off rapidly, landing lightly on the river of ice to run its course. Four men went south, the other four headed east with Kakashi, using chakra to keep from plunging through ice that turned as fragile as glass in some places. The sky was quickly fading as they ran, but the moon's cast on the snow and ice reflected an abundance of light. After a few miles, they reached the first of the eastern bridges. The group split in two and Kakashi continued on with Seito and Takashi at his side. The last eastern bridge was perhaps the furthest, and they sprinted without pause to make it to their point with time. The bridges would all come down simultaneously at midnight… and Kakashi didn't want to be late to that appointment, for when the first bridge fell, Konoha would be alerted within only a couple of hours.

Kakashi had no intention of still being here when the people he'd fought beside his whole life showed up.

The bridge came into sight – a dark stretch of stone and timbre that shadowed the river. "Get the tags ready," Kakashi told the other two, sensing they were almost out of time.

And no sooner had he thought that than he felt a tremble in the ice under his feet, followed a few seconds later by a distant, echoing thunder. Sound always travelled further when the land was blanketed in snow. No doubt that sound had also reached Konoha.

Kakashi looked at his watch. One minute past twelve. Late again.

"Let's hurry," he grunted, pulling out his own sheaf of paper exploding tags. Working in synchrony with Seito and Takashi, they pinned them into place along the wooden struts supporting the bridge. Once they went, so went the bridge, and so also went one of the main sources of Konoha's trade.

It was standard warfare to sever the importing and exporting routes of the enemy. Konoha had done the very same thing to Iwa in the last war, and now they were using mercenaries to return the favour this time around. The irony was not lost on Kakashi. He himself had been one of those who had set the bombs that blew up the Iwa bridges.

Now here he was, setting bombs under his _own_ bridges.

"All set here!" Seito called from the other side of the bridge.

"Done!" Takashi agreed.

They retreated to a safe distance on the ice and looked back. Kakashi closed his eyes. Then with a sharp intake of breath, he lifted his hand into the seal for _fire_ and set off every tag at once. Heat exploded outwards, showering them with debris and burning cinders. He heard the timber groan as it gave way, and the crack and splash as the heavy stones crashed into the melting ice beneath.

Without opening his eyes to look at the damage, Kakashi turned. "Let's go," was all he said.

They ran back at full tilt, sliding over broken ice and reeds, leaving the river only to cut through the trees and avoid the bridge they'd passed earlier. Kakashi could see the smoke rising up into sky above a burning orange glow. No doubt it would have attracted other attention by now, and he didn't want to get close enough to risk being seen.

When they arrived back at their meeting point beside the first bridge, the rest of the squad was already gathered there, waiting.

"Have you set the tags?" Kakashi asked, looking at the central bridge that was far wider and heavier than any of the others, and certainly the oldest. It was the bridge that saw most business to Konoha. Kakashi had crossed it so many times in his life… so many times he'd lost count.

"We ran out," said one of his younger cousins.

Kakashi pulled out the spare tags from his pouch and handed them. "Quickly." Konoha could arrive at any moment.

They rushed to carry out his orders, pinning and sticking the tags upon the supports and on the underside of its arch.

Kakashi didn't detonate them. Someone else beat him to it and he didn't have the time to prepare himself and turn away. Before his eyes the bridge jumped and churned and began to crumble, billowing dust and steam and smoke as it all caved into the river… nothing more than a heap of loose pebbles.

"Score!" Seito shouted, coughing. "That was a big one."

The squad stood marvelling at their handwork while Kakashi felt only guilt. Konoha would be hurt by this. Badly.

And he'd had no choice.

"We'd better head back," he said thickly, looking around for any sign of company. "There's no point sticking around for Konoha to-"

A cold wind blew, sweeping the smoke aside for a brief moment to leave the other side of the river almost clear… and Kakashi froze.

Noticing his sudden stop, the men around him looked over.

There was someone on the other bank. They were small, but the moon shone behind them, casting the undoubtedly human shadow against the flowing clouds of smoke and ash… but there was something wrong with them though. Their right arm seemed too long, too limp, though they were waving exuberantly with the left. Was it shouting? Kakashi heard nothing but the crackle of ice and wood.

"What's the matter?" Takashi asked him.

Kakashi looked at him in bewilderment. Couldn't they see the person standing there? He pointed, but they only looked even more confused.

Another breeze flattened the smoke… and the figure came into perfect focus.

He was young, male, dark-haired. His right arm hung bloody and crushed, as did most of the right side of his body including half his skull. Nevertheless, he smiled and waved, looking directly at Kakashi from red holes in his face where his eyes should have been.

"Obito…"

Kakashi stumbled back sharply, straight into one of his white-haired cousins. Not half a second later, a heavy kunai thudded into the ground where he'd been standing.

"They're here!" Takashi shouted, and suddenly everyone was reaching for their swords. Kakashi hesitated. His gaze swept the other bank of the river desperately, but Obito was gone. All he saw now were pale white animal masks appearing from the shadows all around.

The ANBU had caught up with them.

"What's this? A little band of bridge burners?" A cat masked woman purred. From the voice it was undoubtedly Anko.

"Give yourselves up!" another ANBU shouted, and from the way he could make the shadows flicker around him, Kakashi knew it was Shikamaru. "We have you surrounded."

There were thirteen of them in total. He and his clan were outnumbered, but he doubted they were outmatched.

"I was hoping we'd meet some Konoha scum," one of his cousins muttered. "This'll liven things up a little."

Kakashi looked around. Around him were the faces of his family, eager for blood and dying for a fight, and across from him were the faces of his friends, angry and ready for retribution. An unstoppable clash. Kakashi had never wanted to find himself in the middle of this… and he couldn't watch his friends and family tear each other apart.

Where was Obito? Had he really seen him? What did his old friend think of what he'd become now?

Kakashi's jaw tightened. "We're leaving," he said quietly to the others.

"What?" some of them hissed back.

"We've completed our mission. Engaging with Konoha is not our objective, and we're outnumbered-"

"They're nobodies! We can take them-"

"They're ANBU, and I'm not willing to risk your lives for something so unnecessary. We're leaving immediately."

Anko had always had sharp ears. "Apprehend them! They're going to escape!"

The masks of the ANBU blurred as they moved to carry out their orders. A white crow shrieked and swerved over their heads, and the next thing the Konoha nin saw was nine men burst into flight in the form of nine black crows.

They could only watch, confused, as the flock dispersed into the night without a trace.

Kakashi suddenly found himself breathing warm air and sagged to the ground with fatigue. Body transferral over such a distance took a lot of energy, and it was a while before his ears stopped ringing and he could open his eyes to make out the surrounding garden of the Zuru estate. Karasu was still sitting beneath the same tree, looking greyer and even more exhausted than before, but as he rose to his feet he still managed to shoot Kakashi a dirty look.

"Why the hell did you retreat?" he hissed, lurching forward to crack his fist across Kakashi's jaw.

Pain exploded in his cheek, but Kakashi remained calm. "You don't know them like I do," he said quietly. "Some of us wouldn't have made it back if we'd engaged."

"That's a given!" Karasu snapped coldly. "There isn't a man here who isn't prepared to lay down his life for a mission, and since when have you become a pacifist?!"

"The lives of my teammates come first," Kakashi ground out. "Always."

"Yeah, I've heard that line before," grunted, Karasu, straightening with a more composed air. "At least the mission was a success. Even a pussy like you couldn't mess that up."

Kakashi was too tired to argue or defend himself. He could hardly hold himself upright, and he had no wish to explain himself any further to Karasu. Instead he mumbled an excuse and headed back into the house, walking through silent, deserted corridors and up creaking stairs until he was once again within sight of his room. He could feel Sakura. He knew she was safe. Something he'd been holding tense within him relaxed, and he moved through the door quietly so as not to wake her.

His blanket was laid out neatly on the sofa, and a dim lamp stood lit beside it. Kakashi sat down with a sigh of relief and began stripping himself of his mask and equipment. He probably wouldn't be able to wake up tomorrow morning to get out of sight before Sakura got up. And _tough_. She'd have to put up with the sight of his snoring body on the couch for _one_ morning. It wouldn't kill her. Not the same way his lifestyle was trying to kill him.

Ditching his belt and thigh holster on the floor, Kakashi touched his sore cheek thoughtfully. He had to be careful around Karasu. He couldn't give the man any cause to believe he was defending Konoha's interests, or his place here would be in jeopardy. Months of subtle weasel words and mild suggestions to discourage aggressive action would only work for so long. Eventually Karasu would stop listening. Eventually a mission would come in from Iwa that not even Kakashi could oppose on any reasonable grounds.

He placed his head in his hands and sighed again. Sometimes it was enough to wish he'd never met his family in the first place.

_Thump_.

Kakashi stopped breathing and listened. Was that Sakura making her routine nightly trip to the bathroom?

_Thump._

It wasn't coming from the bedroom; it sounded like someone was in the corridor outside. The soft, slow thumps grew louder, as if they were approaching footsteps. And as they grew louder, Kakashi's ears picked up that each _thump_ was punctuated by a rough, scraping sound, as if something was being dragged along the floor.

The footsteps stopped outside his door. Kakashi moved not a single muscle.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the door inched open, as if being pulled aside be a weak child who'd never encountered such a door. Instinctively Kakashi grabbed the ninjato that lay at his feet and stood, his heart thumping painfully hard and his eyes wide, disbelieving and panicked.

Through the door stepped Obito, dragging his mangled right leg after him.

He was a mess. No eyes, half his body caved in. The pungent stink of death rolled into the room with him – a cloying reek of dirt and decay that had never truly left Kakashi's nose since the first time he'd smelt it. It made him want to gag. Bits of mud and crumbled rock were falling from Obito's body as he jerked forward, one slow step at a time, and in his wake he tracked a streak of blood.

"What's going on Kakashi?" he asked, his voice exactly as he remembered it. But he was just a child… so much younger and smaller than he'd ever realised, but nothing had changed about him since the day Kakashi had left him to be buried alive.

All he could manage was a rough whisper. "Obito… this isn't real. You're _dead._"

"Yes," he said. "I know. What about you?"

"I-"

"The bridges, Kakashi. Do you remember? I died to bring down Iwa's bridges, and now you're doing it to Konoha. Why have you turned?"

"I haven't."

"I died to save Konoha. I gave you my eye so you could look after it. Look after Konoha and Rin and Sensei." He continued to lumber forward, forcing Kakashi to inch back towards the wall between the partition and the sofa. "You've gotten Rin and Sensei killed. Now you're killing Konoha too?"

"Obito, you're not real."

"You didn't deserve to survive that day. You didn't deserve my eye." Obito began to reach out, staring at him unseeingly. "I think I'll take it back now."

Before that cold, clammy hand could touch him, Kakashi threw himself towards the partition door and slammed it shut after him. There was a grumpy snort from the region of the bed as he hastily backed away through the dark room, not stopping until his legs hit the nightstand.

"Wha… Kakashi?" Sakura croaked from the mattress beside him. "What the hell are you doing?"

Kakashi hardly noticed her. His eyes were on the door… on the dark silhouette behind it that was reaching for the handle. No more. _No more_. He made a despairing sound and slid to the ground, hands pressed over his eyes. It couldn't be real. He didn't believe in ghosts, so it had to be a hallucination. Hallucinations were just products of the mind… they couldn't hurt him. If he couldn't _see_ Obito, his ghost couldn't touch him.

The bedside lamp switched on above his head.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked, peering down at him uncertainly.

"I'm going mad," he said, much more calmly than he felt. "That's all."

"Clearly," she said dryly.

"Is he still at the door?" Kakashi asked her. "Is he following me?

"Who?" She sounded confused.

"Just tell me – is there a corpse of a boy walking towards me right now trying to pull out my eyes?"

She looked. "I don't think so."

He lowered his hands swiftly, believing her, and sure enough all he saw now was a blank partition door lit by the orange lamp on the other side. There was clearly no one else in the other room. "Hm," he grunted. "You're right."

"Are you drunk?" she guessed.

"Not this time."

"If you're seeing malevolent ghosts, that's probably a sign of a guilty conscience," she told him pointedly. "What have _you_ been up to this night that would provoke the wrath of the undead?"

He hung a shaky hand over his eyes again. "I blew up the bridges around Konoha. The trade routes are cut, and their supplies are already low," he said. "Maybe that's why Obito is haunting me. I've helped deal a terrible blow to Konoha."

The silence was stony, and he could sense her anger swelling to fill it. She was going to explode and quit possibly thrash him, and he probably deserved it.

He had helped _attack_ Konoha.

"Or maybe it's because I misled Karasu."

Her temper held for a second longer. "What do you mean?" she asked through clenched teeth.

"I told him that hitting the bridges would be more effective than any frontal assault, but it doesn't matter how many bridges we destroyed," he explained, beginning to laugh. "Because by tomorrow, Tenzou will have rebuilt them all."

Her expression changed. She was speechless. She stared at him a moment until gradually her eyes shifted around the room in a searching manner, as if re-examining the situation around her. Then she seemed to sag and sigh, her anger escaping like hot air from a balloon, and her hand fell against the top of his head. "You can't keep playing this game, Kakashi," she told him quietly.

"If I hadn't been there tonight, some of my friends might have been killed. Some of my family might have been killed." He shuddered. "Someone has to watch over these idiots."

"You'll only drive yourself mad-"

"I'm not mad, I'm just… fatigued." He lowered the hand from his brow and blinked at the partition door, daring another vision to reappear.

"Maybe you should go to bed then?" she suggested.

"That's a good idea," he said. But he didn't move. "Sakura…"

"Yes?" she asked slowly.

"I'm not trying it on or anything," he began, "but can I sleep in here?"

She frowned. "You want me to go back to the dorm?" she asked incredulously. Admittedly, kicking a pregnant woman out of her bed did sound like a horrendous thing to do.

"No," was all he said.

It took a moment for Sakura to fully understand what he was implying – and needless to say, anything not bolted down in that room nearly took an apprehensive jump back away from the bed. "_Go to hell!_" she hissed. "I'm through with sleeping with you – I _learnt_ my lesson five months ago! You want this bed? _Have it_. But you're not sliming your way in next to me again! I'm going!"

She threw the covers back and slipped her feet to the floor. Kakashi didn't move or say anything to stop her, and that made her pause. Normally by now he would be protesting, saying she'd misunderstood, or reacting in _some_ way. She seemed to sense it and hesitated. "What is it?" she snapped at him.

"Nothing," he sighed. "I just don't really want to sleep alone tonight, but I'm not going to force you to stay."

She rolled her eyes, but she didn't stand up. Perhaps it was because she needed to gather momentum before standing on her feet these days, or perhaps it was because she felt sorry for him. He didn't want to impose himself on her, and he didn't get any joy out of making her uncomfortable, but he needed someone _sane_ beside him right now. Ghosts like Obito would only bother him if he was alone, and not with the anchor of another human being to remind him that ghosts weren't real.

"The bed's big, I guess," she said reluctantly. "If you stick to your side, we'll have slept closer on missions."

"Thank you," he breathed.

"If you try anything funny, I'll kick you in the kidneys so hard you'll be pissing blood for weeks," she warned vehemently.

He believed her implicitly. "I understand."

"Don't snore, and don't shift restlessly – I have enough trouble sleeping as it is," she continued to warn as she settled back down beneath the covers again, close to the edge of the bed. "And don't steal the covers."

"I understand." He moved around the bed to sit on the opposite side. On his nightstand stood a pitcher of water and an empty glass, and he took a moment to pour out a drink to soothe his dry mouth before falling back onto the mattress.

Sakura made a soft noise of annoyance and then pulled the covers around her almost defensively. She was welcome to them. Kakashi would rather sleep on top over the blankets, where it felt fractionally less intimate than beneath them with her. The lamp switched off and the room plunged into darkness again. Kakashi spared another wary glance at the blank partition wall before turning his eyes to the ceiling.

Aside from the soft stirrings of the wind and the insects in the garden, everything was suddenly still. In the distance across the lake a terrible animal screeched in the night, but it was too far away to trouble them. Sakura was obviously trying to get to sleep and he had no doubt she was as wide awake and painfully aware of him as he was of her. He could hear her soft, slow breathes, and even the flutter of her eyelashes against the pillow.

"Before you found out about my relation to Karasu and the others," he said to the ceiling, "did you want me to be a father?"

It was a long, painful silence before she answered. "That doesn't matter anymore."

He sighed. "I understand," he said, and closed his eyes.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Plans in Motion_


	28. Plans in Motion

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Plans in Motion

* * *

_There must be something I don't recognize,_

_There's something here I don't realize._

_A red sun on my windowpane,_

_And next to me I see you again._

* * *

Darkness invaded every inch of his subconscious, a thick impenetrable blanket that wrapped around his body, suffocating him and hiding unnamed, formless horrors within it. He tried to reach out in search of something familiar, something tangible to hold on to –

But all that reached back was a cold, clammy little hand caked in blood and grit.

Kakashi recoiled so strongly he jerked awake with a shudder. But even though the dark bedroom fluttered into focus and he realised he was looking up at the patterned panels of the ceiling, the creeping horror still held him like all his bad dreams. How could the anxiety fade when there was no reprieve from his problems in the waking world? A sleepy sigh to his left brought his head around, and automatically he found himself reaching for the same soft, reassuring familiarity that he'd sought in his dream. There was no conscious deliberation when he rolled over and wrapped his arm around Sakura. With her back pressed to his chest and his nose buried in her hair, the darkness filled with guilt and ghosts felt a little bit further away than before.

Sakura stirred at first, initially trying to shrug him off sleepily as if she wasn't used to the sensation of sleeping in a man's arms, but even a novice like her couldn't resist that warm, seductive lull. Gradually she relaxed, content with the weight of his arm and the hand resting on her belly beside hers. She really was his anchor. When one of his greatest fears was for her safety, he slept better knowing she was in his arms where nothing could happen to her without him knowing about it. He could feel his chakra tag pulsing away on her hip, a little piece of himself embedded in her skin that connected them even when they were apart.

Here in this bed it was easier to pretend their hardships were just part of someone else's life. Right now they were simply two people sleeping, embracing, breathing in tandem. However much pain and mistrust there was between them when the sun rose, right now he could imagine everything was as it was. As it _should_ have been.

Drowsily, he shifted closer, stroking his hand over her hip as in inhaled the sweet, floral scent of her shampoo. This was how it could have been the first time she'd made love, if he hadn't seen the way her expression had changed when he'd mentioned Sasuke, and if he hadn't had to rebuff her questioning with hostility to keep her from thinking too hard about the seemingly illogical actions he'd taken on that mission. There were so many things he could blame for the wedge that had been driven between them in such a vulnerable moment; Sasuke, for existing and still being the first man in Sakura's life; his family, for needing protection from Sakura; himself, for being weak to jealousy and clumsy with Sakura…

As his idling hand passed over her stomach again, Sakura uttered an unintelligible murmur and shifted her hips back into the cradle of his. In his half asleep state his body reacted the only way it knew how when presented with a female posterior wiggling against his lap. The blankets that had been securely wrapped around her just a few hours ago had been shoved down to compensate for the tropical temperature in their room, and the lightweight material of her yukata robe didn't pose much of a barrier, not when he could slip his hand so easily between the folds of the material and splay his fingers across the soft, silky skin of her thigh. She shifted again at his touch, pressing her bottom back into a more comfortable position against his growing erection. A faint groan escaped him.

The pale, curve of her neck beckoned coyly, and when he bent his head to taste the moonlight on her skin she made an appreciative sound. He wanted her. He wanted her just as intensely as he'd wanted her months ago. She was wary of him, but she had no idea how good he could make it for her. How good it would feel for both of them when he sank into her tight, warm little sheath without the barrier of her virginity. He could still remember what it felt like to be inside her, to feel her clench and shiver around him when she reached climax.

He was sweating. His heart was pounding against her back and his erection throbbed almost painfully in the confines of his pants. His hand fumbled across her, stroking across the naked skin of her belly to grip her hip. "Sakura," he whispered, his voice low and rough with need. "Turn over."

Her eyes barely opened and she made another soft, sleepy sound as she shifted around at the urging of his hands. Immediately he pressed his mouth to hers and dragged her thigh over his hip, and with the gap of her yukata robe split wide open he could feel the heat of her flesh pressing against him.

But his pants were in the way. With a groan of frustration against her soft, pliant mouth he reached down and unbuttoned himself, shoving down the offending material to free his aching erection. He rolled his hips against her again and shuddered at the unbelievable pleasure of his sex sliding against her soft, moist folds.

Sakura came a little more awake at that. Dimly she was aware of being kissed so deeply she could barely breathe, and touched with something thick and hard between her legs. She couldn't make sense of it outside the indescribable pleasure. Rational objections just weren't reaching her, not when he was drawing her in so easily with his mouth and the hand that had reached inside her robe to hold one of her full, heavy breasts. She gasped as he flicked his thumb against her oversensitive nipple and sank her nails into his shoulders.

This had to be one of her dreams. She'd had so many of him since that first night, and even after she'd found out what an idiot she'd been to trust him. On some level her body refused to forget him, and memories of the short-lived pleasure he'd given returned once in a while in the night. But this was different. This was new, and hot, and almost stifling. It felt too real. Too visceral.

"Sakura," he groaned.

She heard the strain and the need in his voice and felt a responding echo in herself. Then he was suddenly lifting her leg higher and angling his hips in, and the pressure between her legs was increasing so alarmingly that she instinctively tried to retreat from it. He stopped her with a hand on her hip, anchoring her in place. "Please, don't," he whispered, "don't move…"

But this was suddenly too real for Sakura. The biting pressure of her yielding flesh brought about a sudden, savage clarity and every scream of rage and anger and betrayal locked in her throat. She convulsed, kicking and thrashing and scratching at his face until he grabbed her hands and held them down, subduing her. For a heartstopping moment she thought that was it. He wouldn't let go. He would just continue.

And she couldn't stop him.

The pressure eased. His grip loosened. He rolled onto his back and Sakura scrambled away so fast her knees hit the floor before she realised what she was doing. She couldn't look at him when he was lying there making no effort to cover himself. Seconds stretched by agonisingly slow, and all she could see was a dark floor and all she could hear was the sound of her own thudding heart.

What the hell had just happened?

She heard Kakashi's bitten off curse as he manoeuvred off the bed and stormed towards the bathroom door. The door slammed with a resonating crash that shook the whole room. Sakura squeezed her eyes shut. She knew what he was going to do in there and she didn't want to know. She didn't want to _hear._

Instead she rose unsteadily to her feet and crossed to the partition door. She'd had enough of this, and him, and his _stupid _arrangement! She stumbled out into the corridor and ran half-blind through the darkness, relying on her memory of the layout as much as the squares of moonlight from the window that punctuated the long corridor's floor. It was tempting to turn into any one of the hundreds of empty rooms in this place, but what would be the point? Kakashi would always know where she was.

So she kept on running, down to the undercroft and through its reassuring labyrinth of tunnels and storerooms until she came to the servants' quarters, and when she reached the door of her old dorm she threw it open and slammed it shut as if she felt a presence pursuing her at her very heels. A sleepy snort from one of the futons greeted her.

"Who's that?" Kaoru croaked.

"Sakura?" Aki peered through the dark at her.

"Urgh…" Yui just rolled over to face the wall.

Immediately Sakura's gaze zoned in on the unoccupied futon that hadn't been slept on in weeks, despite being dutifully laid out by the other girls every night. That was all she needed. She slipped down onto it and pulled the covers tightly over her head.

"Sakura – what's the matter?" Kaoru's voice sounded nearby and she felt a concerned hand touch her shoulder through the quilt. "Are you alright?"

Sakura didn't trust herself to speak, not when she was still trembling with rage and humiliation. How could she have been so stupid to trust the man would keep his hands to himself? And how could she have even for a second wanted to throw all her inhibitions away and let him carry on?

If he thought everything between them could just be made better with sex, he had another thing coming. But it wasn't just his nerve that angered her; it was that it had been a long time since anyone had made her feel so vulnerable.

"Sakura, what's wrong?" Aki asked. "Is it Kakashi?"

Kaoru gasped. "He didn't do anything, did he?"

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut. Just hearing his name made her ashamed all over again at the weaknesses he exposed in her. "It's nothing," she forced out. "He sent me away, that's all."

"Figures," Yui grunted maliciously, more to herself than anyone else. The other two girls weren't overwhelmingly convinced judging from their silence, but Sakura remained perfectly uncooperative. She hadn't come here to cause drama or seek reassurance. She'd come here because this was perhaps the one place Kakashi wouldn't bother her and though she'd rather sleep alone in a cool, quiet room where she could cry out all the hopelessness and shame she felt, here among the other girls there was a kind of safety in numbers.

God… how had it had come to this?

And to her despair it seemed like only a few minutes passed before she heard footsteps along the corridor outside. Someone tapped respectfully on the door before drawing it open. "Is Yamanaka Sakura in here?" asked one of the older scullery maids.

Sakura stayed buried in her blankets, determined not to move.

Aki rose with a croak. "Who's asking for her?"

"Take a guess," the scullery maid said, like it was obvious.

Apparently Sakura's relationship with Kakashi was often discussed behind her back. She knew that spending every night of every week in his bed gave the impression that he was incredibly demanding, and she also knew that a lot of people didn't approve of pregnant women having that much sex with men, especially with ones that weren't the father. Sakura had to grin and bear it. He'd had her over a barrel with this fake relationship, leaving her no room to deny or refuse it.

Until now.

"I'm not going," she grunted from the confines of her bed. "Tell him to fuck off."

The scullery maid laughed. "Darling, you don't say 'no' to a Hatake."

"I didn't say 'no', I said 'fuck off'."

"Sakura, I thought he sent you away," Aki whispered to her.

Her convenient little white lie had turned on itself already. Sakura pulled the blankets tighter and simply repeated herself. "I'm not going." And that was that.

"_I'm _not telling him that," the scullery maid protested. "He's in a mood to kill."

"You will go and tell him, because if Sakura doesn't want to go back, she's not going back! Don't try to force her because you don't want to deal with his bad mood. What do you think he'd do to _her?_" Aki hissed back. "I'll wake Uncle Karasu up if I have to – he has no right to use any of the staff like this."

The scullery maid blew out an exasperated sigh. "Fine, but if it's my funeral, _you're_ paying."

The door slammed shut again and another awkward silence fell over the room. Kaoru crawled over to kneel next to Sakura's bed. "What did he do?" she asked quietly. "You can tell us, Sakura."

He had made a mockery of the second strongest kunoichi in Konoha, that was all. Now all the second strongest kunoichi in Konoha wanted to do now was hide under her quilt and cry for all the dignity this stupid baby had cost her. She never would have come here if she hadn't gotten pregnant and she wouldn't have lost her chakra control either. She wouldn't have had to humour Kakashi's insanity and she never would have, for a brief moment, had to feel what it was like to be at the mercy of a man.

Not even Toshio had managed to illicit that panic in her, not when she'd always been aware that everything he did to her – real or imaginary – was only at Sakura's own choosing. Without that choice, what the hell was she?

That Kaoru, a girl who'd been subjected to the real thing countless times, was rubbing her shoulder consolingly just made her feel all the more pathetic. She'd been spoilt by the sense of security her talents and tutelage had given her. She was used to her strength allowing her to decide her own boundaries. To be so weakened that she had to now rely on someone else to know when to stop…

It shook her.

Footsteps came hurrying back down the corridor twice as fast as before. The scullery maid threw open the door again, looking red-faced and angry. "I told you he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer! I have never been subjected to such language in my life! This is _your_ problem, _you_ deal with it! I don't see why I'm sticking my neck out here."

She left quickly before anyone could stop her, leaving Aki casting around for someone else to turn to. "I'll have to get my uncle," she whispered reluctantly.

"What's _he_ going to do?" Kaoru asked. "He's not going to care."

"He might stop Kakashi…" Aki sounded dubious. "I know he doesn't approve."

"I don't think he'll approve of being woken in the middle of the night for this either," the other girl cautioned.

On the other side of the room, Yui slammed her hands down against her coverlet with a thump. "Oh, big fucking deal, so he got a little rough! This is pathetic! Just go back and let us get some sleep!"

"Yui," Aki said pleadingly.

"No!" she hissed back. "He treats her like a damn princess and she throws a tantrum because something didn't go her way for once! Give me a break – he gives up his bed for her and doesn't even touch her most of the time."

Sakura clawed the covers out of the way. "How do you know?" she demanded. "Have you been _spying_ on us?!"

"I clean his room!" Yui snapped. "Every morning only one side of the bed is disturbed and the sheets are always clean! What are you doing in there all night? _Holding hands_?"

Sakura's first thought was that they'd made a serious oversight and would in future have to make more of an effort to be messy. Her second thought was _screw that;_ the arrangement was Kakashi's idea and it was _his_ oversight. But if word of this got back to Karasu…

As she attempted to formulate some good explanations for the lack of mess in Kakashi's room, something along the lines of Sakura tidying before Yui arrived, Kaoru piped up. "I'll go," she sighed.

"What?" Aki asked sharply.

"I'll go tell him – Kakashi – that Sakura's not coming so he should just leave her alone." But she looked so nervous that Sakura reached out to pull her back down when she stood.

"You don't have to," Sakura said quickly, not wanting to put Kaoru through any unpleasantness for her own sake.

"No, I think he's kind," she said softly with a faint blush. "I think if someone explains it to him properly he'll respect it." She stood with a brief smile and slipped over to the door. "Don't worry, I'll be back in a little while."

Sakura bit her lip. "I don't think you should-" But Kaoru was already gone from the doorway.

Yui looked on mutely. "She's kidding herself," she said flatly. "Kaoru's terrified of men."

"I wonder why," Sakura shot at her.

Yui shrugged and settled back down. "She's weak, that's all."

* * *

The image of the man looking back at him from the mirror was not one he immediately recognised. Rarely did he ever get the chance to examine his naked face as the only times he removed his mask was to eat, sleep, and shave – none of which he did in front of a mirror, but sometimes you just had to take a good, long, hard look at yourself, and right now he looked every bit as sordid as he felt.

He looked away from the mirror and rubbed his hand vainly through wet hair that was beginning to get too long for his liking. Pretty soon he would be able to tie it up and then the transformation into Karasu's identical twin would be complete. Although they'd started out quite differently the similarities were growing, but the question of who had started emulating whom was one he'd failed to answer for nearly twenty years. Kakashi hoped to hell that he wouldn't start acquiring some of Karasu's less flattering qualities – like his domineering, disrespectful attitudes and subtle form of sadism.

Although perhaps judging from his behaviour tonight, maybe it was already too late.

Kakashi sighed as he dropped himself onto the couch of the main room and shoved a hand deep into his pocket in search of the one thing he needed right now – a cigarette. He lit it and drew on it, and closed his eyes to concentrate on Sakura's chakra tag. There was no sign of her approaching. His fingers drummed against the arm of the couch in growing impatience.

The agitation wasn't really at her, after all most girls would run away screaming if woken up to that. Only she seemed to have been enjoying it as much as him until suddenly turning into a wildcat. And not the _good _kind. More like the kind that hissed and yowled and shredded your face into confetti for breathing wrong.

Whatever had happened, it was clear that whatever small progress he'd made in regaining her trust had taken a step back. He needed to see her. No way was he going to let her run away to hide under her bed and avoid him. He needed her to cooperate with him, whatever objections she found in him, because if she didn't…

It meant abject failure in all his plans.

The creek of floorboards in the corridor outside alerted him to the presence of another visitor. It couldn't have been Sakura, but nor did it sound like the flat-footed maid he'd already sent away twice.

It couldn't be…

Kakashi lowered the cigarette sharply and put his hand on the sheathed ninjato he'd dumped on the couch when he'd first come in. _Not again_, he thought. Being haunted twice in one night was a bit much, especially after he'd gone to great pains to switch on every light and lamp throughout his rooms in order to banish every shadow from every corner.

But light alone might not be enough to keep ghosts at bay, and if Obito came lurching through that door again he _would_ throw himself out the window and not stop running.

When his visitor knocked shyly on the door he began to relax. To his knowledge, ghosts didn't knock.

"Come in," he grunted warily and was reassured when a perfectly normal, living girl drew the door aside.

He recognised her. She was one of the maids that worked alongside Sakura and was probably the same one he'd initially thought was pregnant. Her face was favoured like most of the maids in this place, but right now it was pale and tense, and she looked was looking at everything but him as if he'd already bitten her head off.

Compared to the mouthy maid from before he didn't quite have the heart lay into her, even if he couldn't quite temper the sharpness when he spoke. "Try again," he snapped. "I asked for _Sakura."_

"Sakura doesn't want to attend you," the girl murmured. "Not tonight."

"It's not negotiable. Tell her to come or I'll just drag her away myself."

She looked startled. "She won't come. You frightened her."

He snorted. "Nothing frightens Sakura."

The girl's eyes darted up as far as his knee. "You did," she said quietly. "Sakura's the bravest, toughest girl I've ever met. She wasn't even really scared when she got attacked and saw that man die. But she was scared when she came to our room a little while ago. _Please_ don't ask any more of her tonight."

Kakashi looked her up and down and knew exactly what she was thinking – which was undoubtedly that he'd performed some devious sexual act upon a poor unconsenting pregnant girl. And while that was far too close to the truth for his own conscience, he pushed back the guilt and worry he felt. He wasn't asking her to return to continue what had been left unfinished.

Even if the memory of her eager little kisses and moans was enough to stir his cock all over again.

"You have no idea what I'm asking of her," he said shortly. "Go back and tell her to meet me here right away. It's a courtesy. Make sure she understands that I will see her even if it means dragging her away by the hair."

"Please, sir, she _won't_ come," said the maid. "Is it really so important for it to be Sakura?"

"What?" He didn't follow.

"Perhaps I can do?" she whispered. "At least for tonight." With that, she began tugging at the sash at her waist. Kakashi had no idea what she was trying to accomplish until it came loose and suddenly it was on the floor… along with the rest of her clothes.

His mouth opened, then promptly shut again. "Mm."

"I'll do whatever you want," she said mechanically, staring at the floor. "Whatever you ask, sir."

He winced. "I think… you should put your clothes back on," he said, definitely looking at the wrong part of her anatomy.

His gaze jerked back to her face in time to catch the desperate look she shot him. "Please give me a chance," she begged. "I can please you just as well – maybe more. I have greater experience than Sakura anyway. I'll do things she isn't willing to do!"

Now he just felt sick. Ordinarily it was quite nice to have a girl take her clothes off in front of you and demand to be thoroughly debased, but not when she said it with the expression of someone who had a knife against their throat. It didn't take much imagination to wonder _who _had given her those experiences, not when she had all the sexual confidence of a shivering little dog.

"Put your clothes back on," he said, looking resolutely at the ceiling. "You're not that kind of girl."

"No!" she protested desperately. "Please take me instead, sir! Sakura's my friend, and she's already in so much trouble because of the baby! I can be anything you want me to be just – just leave her alone."

He stood up and dropped the remainder of his cigarette in the coffee table's ashtray. "I'm very demanding, I'm not sure you could keep up," he told her seriously.

She shivered. "I'd… I'd do my best to please you."

"I like pain," he said as he moved towards her. "Mine and yours. Do you like pain?"

"I… I can learn to."

"No, that's not the point. You can't _like_ pain. I want to wrap my hands around a girl's throat and not know whether she's screaming for pleasure or for mercy. Do you understand that?"

She nodded wordlessly, but her mouth had dropped open, aghast at what she was hearing.

"And you still want to offer yourself up?"

Again, she nodded.

"Just to spare Sakura the horror of being with me?"

She froze. "I didn't mean it like that, sir…"

"Sure you did." He gave her a small, cold smile that scared her more than any glare could. "You think I'm a monster who is subjecting Sakura to brutalities you know too well, and you're willing to endure it in her stead just because she's your friend."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"For being a good friend? Apology accepted." He reached down and picked up the fallen robe to begin wrapping it back around her shoulders and clamped the edges together with his hand, because he had the feeling that if he let go it might magically end up back on the floor. The girl was persistent, but right now she looked confused. "I think I can trust you to take a message to our mutual friend Sakura."

"No… no, I'm here to satisfy your needs," she told him, trying to shrug off her yukata, but Kakashi wouldn't let her. They both knew it was harder for men to think when confronted with a naked woman.

"Men don't have _needs, _they have wants," he rebuked. "And those that can't control themselves for even one night aren't fit to be called men. But the only thing I want tonight is to talk to Sakura. We had a misunderstanding, that's all."

"A misunderstanding?" she repeated dubiously.

"Yes, so run off back to your dorm and tell her that I want to talk to her."

"She won't come just because I said you want to talk." And it looked like she didn't believe that was all he wanted either.

"Not even to apologise?"

She was silent.

"It's Kaoru, isn't it?"

Her eyes flew wide. "How did you-"

"She's talked about you. She's very fond of you… very protective. If she knew you were naked with me she'd kill me."

"I-I'm sure she wouldn't dream of-"

"She would."

"No-"

"Very painfully."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"She _is_ quite short-tempered…"

"You don't know the half of it," he sighed. "So to prevent my untimely demise, would you put your clothes back on?"

Kaoru hesitated before slowly shrugging her arms back into the sleeves and reaching down to take up her sash again. He felt it was safe to let go and allow her to retie her clothing. When she looked at him she was still wary, but now there was a flush of embarrassment across her cheeks like she understood what she'd done was completely pointless and unnecessary. "Can't you just apologise tomorrow, sir?" she asked "I'm sure she will have cooled down by then."

"If I leave it till tomorrow she will have rationalised another dozen ways to blow it out of proportion," he said flatly. "I need to see her immediately. Tell her that. Make her understand."

"I don't think I can, sir…" Kaoru said pleadingly. In her view, this pair were as stubborn as jungle goats. Sakura had already made it perfectly clear that she wasn't coming to see this man tonight, but here he was making it equally clear that he _was_ going to be seen. One was her friend and the other was an honoured guest of the household that she couldn't risk offending unless she wanted to be thrown out of this estate so hard and fast she'd leave skidmarks all the way across the courtyard.

If it came down to it, she didn't think she could hold her own against this man much longer. Not just because she was obligated to obey, but because she was trying to talk down an experience warrior twice her age whose sharp, scarred face and steady, one-eyed gaze put her on edge. She'd seen him around before but he'd always been masked, and to see the personality in the face hidden beneath it, she wondered at her silly little crush and how insignificant it probably was to this man who had killed so many.

But when she looked for that spark of cruelty that she thought she saw in the faces of all the people like him… she couldn't find it. All she saw was a passive kind of receptiveness, like he was open to all thoughts and ideas around him no matter where they came from, even lowly servants.

So when he said it was all a misunderstanding and all he wanted to do was talk, she wanted to believe him.

"You're right. Normal platitudes wouldn't work on that harridan." He stroked his chin thoughtfully and she heard the scratch of invisible stubble. "She wouldn't be swayed unless…"

He trailed off again and Kaoru waited, toes wiggling anxiously in the confines of her socks. "Unless?"

Now he looked faintly sheepish. "You're a friend of Sakura so I trust you with this message, and I trust that you won't repeat it to anyone else because of the damage it could do."

Her eyes widened. "Damage…?"

"Tell Sakura that I…." He hesitated, and then stepped forward to whisper the rest in her ear as if he was worried there were eavesdroppers nearby.

When he stepped back, Kaoru's eyes were even wider. "That's… that's… I'm not sure how she'll take that," she whispered. "Is she… supposed to believe that?"

"Possibly, possibly not. She's kind of mad at me right now," he admitted. "I'm trusting you to sell it for me."

"You're asking a lot, sir."

"Yes," he said simply.

Well, that was that then. "I'll… I'll deliver your message right away."

"Thank you, Kaoru."

He'd used her name! Kaoru threw herself into a deep bow. "Kakashi-sama," she virtually prostrated as she backed towards the door. But before she slipped out again she cast one more look at the man moving back to the couch. "But… what about the pain stuff?"

He dropped himself back into his former position and picked up the smouldering remains of his cigarette to bring it back to his lips. "What about it?"

"Was that true?"

"I was pulling your leg," he said, dragging on the cigarette and turning a thoughtful gaze to the ceiling. "I prefer a cuddle myself."

And then he flashed her a smile that made Kaoru's heart thump unnaturally hard all the way back to the servants' dormitory.

* * *

Sakura looked up wearily when the door slid open and Kaoru entered. Not for a second did she think Kaoru had managed to convince that bull-headed moron to leave her alone, and judging from Kaoru's nervous expression it seemed she'd guessed right.

What she did _not_ expect was for Kaoru, after marching off to defend Sakura's right to peace and quiet for one night, to kneel down beside her and start trying to convince her to go.

"He just wants to talk to you," she promised.

"No!" Sakura gasped. "You were supposed to tell him to stuff it!"

"But I think he means it."

Kakashi had really gone to work on her, to turn Sakura's own friend onto his side. But then a man with enough natural born talent to fool a whole village could easily convince a simple maid from Ame that he had something to say worth hearing.

"He says he's sorry," Kaoru went on. "Like… really earnestly."

Sakura rolled over in her bed and pulled the cover over her ears. She didn't want to hear how sorry he was, she just wanted to be left alone and not have her friends to do Kakashi's dirty work for him. What did he expect her to do? Smile and accept his apology and go back to his bed? She'd rather he stew in his won juices for however long it took for him to feel _truly_ sorry.

"We could still go get my uncle," Aki suggested again.

"We could all _shut up and let me sleep,"_ Yui hissed from her bed.

For once Sakura was inclined to agree with the latter – as if she wasn't angry enough.

Kaoru leant down next to her so that her mouth was close to one of Sakura' partially covered ears. "He told me to say… he wouldn't touch you."

A humiliated prickle of heat crept up Sakura's whole body. Kakashi hadn't actually gone and _told _her what had happened, had he? Did the man have no shame?!

"He said he didn't need to," Kaoru went on, whispering into Sakura's hear so no one else in the room could hear. "Because… I helped stimulate him. He's very relaxed now."

Sakura stopped breathing altogether and for a long time she couldn't remember how to start again. "What?" she croaked dangerously.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned that…" Kaoru whispered, and when Sakura slowly turned to face her she noticed an odd glow about the other girl's face. It was brighter, more fervent than she remembered it being before, and Sakura had the honour of being witness to the fact that Kaoru had come back from this encounter at least twice as much in love with Kakashi as before.

_What the hell had he done?_

Slowly, Sakura pushed back the covers and climbed to her feet. Without looking at any of the other girls she walked towards the door.

"Finally," Yui grunted.

"Where are you going?" Aki asked incredulously.

"I'm going to make a sandwich," she answered with serene composure.

Instinctively they seemed to know that getting in her way now would mean instant, guaranteed death. She strode out the room with only one thought in mind: to castrate a certain man for the good of womankind, and nothing would deter her now. Even the shadows seemed to flee from her as she stormed through the dim undercroft.

With every step her anger mounted. Just when she'd begun to think there were no further depths to which this man could sink, he'd _had_ to surprise her, hadn't he? Between hearing him confess to blowing up fire country bridges for the Syndicate and Iwa, seeing him freaking out over things that weren't there, and having rosy-cheeked Kaoru come to her with news that Kakashi evidently didn't care who gave him sexual relief, it seemed he was intent on driving _her _over the edge.

Well, if that was his intention, he'd succeeded.

And he would be her first victim.

Kakashi's door was there at the end of the narrow corridor, growing closer. She sped up, jaw and fists clenching, until she was close enough to catch the handle and throw it open.

"_You!_" she yelled.

From his position on the couch, he pointed to himself. "Me," he agreed.

"You have no decency!" she accused, each word emphasised with a tremor of anger. "No respect! Not for me!"

Kakashi rose gravely from his seat. "You're angry," he observed needlessly. "Listen-"

"No, _you_ shut up and listen for once!" she raged. It was fortunate this particular guest wing was vacant save for this room, or else the whole floor would have heard her shouts. "I have had it with you and your manipulations and deviance and underhanded tricks! I am not a dog! You can't kick me one minute and expect me to crawl obediently back to you the next! You're not even sorry!"

"I _am_ sorry," he said firmly. "Sakura, I didn't know what I was-"

"I didn't come to hear excuses!" she interrupted. "Kaoru told that you – and – she – you know."

"That she gave me a blowjob?" he guessed. "You realise I told her to say that, don't you?"

Her hands dropped to her sides, eyes wide. "What do you take me for, an idiot? Of course I realise that! You don't have it in you to illicit sex acts from strange girls you don't know, but what, you expected me to believe that tripe because you wanted to get me so angry I'd come up here to confront you about it? Well, congratulations, you insulted my intelligence enough that I came anyway. You think you can pull my strings like a puppet and I won't mind? I'm not playing along anymore, Kakashi! This 'arrangement' is over. I'm not sleeping in here anymore. I only came to tell you that and to warn you to stay the hell away from me for now on because we are, if you've forgotten, enemies."

Having said her piece she turned before he had a chance to open his mouth and respond, intending to shoot off out the door before he could stop her. It was too much to hope for, and she was forced to an abrupt halt when Kakashi's body suddenly blocked the doorway.

"Move," she ground out.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he said quietly. "And I agree, I shouldn't have insulted your intelligence like that."

"You didn't scare me," she bit out. "You pissed me off."

She attempted to push past him, but he caught her arms and held her still. Immediately she was right back to where she'd been in that dark room on that hot bed, struggling against his grip. Her pulse thundered and she swallowed hard, and while he instincts told her to break free and regain some distance, she stood her ground. She would _not_ shy away from him. A kunoichi still had her pride, even if she'd lost so much else.

"I've seen you pissed off and I've seen you scared, I know the difference. I've never wanted you to look at me like that…" There was sadness on his face. Though it made her want to look away, unwilling to see he was as sorry as he said he was, she couldn't escape the hold of his gaze. "What were you so scared of?"

"I wasn't," she ground out.

He sighed. "I suppose you think it's alright to insult my intelligence, huh? Sakura, I wasn't imagining things, was I? You were responding too."

"I don't want to talk about that." She didn't want to talk about his hands on her breasts and his cock pressing between her legs and how good it had felt in those moments before sanity had returned. Her gaze faltered and she tried to step back.

His grip held her. "Have I ever given you reason to believe I'd hurt you?" he demanded.

"That's not the point."

"Then what _is _the point?"

"It's different," she hissed, "when you're the one being held down and what happens next is not up to you."

"What?" Tension stiffened in his shoulders as he stared at her. His numb hands dropped away from her. "You thought I was going to rape you?" he breathed.

She didn't know how to explain that it didn't matter what she thought he would have done, it was simply knowing that she was unable to do anything about it either way that had filled her with such panic. "I don't like being out of control, that's all," she muttered. "You don't know what it's like going from being one of the strongest women in your village to… nothing. And you can't think that after all you've put me through that I'd just go along with something like _that_."

"I wasn't thinking. I had a dream and when I woke up I just reached out… and I _know_ you reached back too."

Her face flushed pink. "Well… I wasn't thinking either. I didn't really know what was going on until you shoved your-"

"Right. Neither of us are culpable for our actions," he said, and she noticed a little embarrassment creeping into his tone like a blush across his words. "Let's just agree we're victims of stress and leave it behind us."

"If you like," she tried to say as if she didn't care. Anything to get out of there.

"So…" He gestured awkwardly to the partition door where the bedroom lay. "You can go back to bed."

"Not _that_ far behind us!" she suddenly exploded. "I'm not sleeping here with you!"

"I won't try anything!" he said pleadingly.

"How am I supposed to trust that after what just happened?"

"I don't _want_ to try anything!"

"_What?!_ You find me repulsive?!" Tears sprung to her eyes as arms wrapped ashamedly around her belly. "You're so mean."

His hands came up as if to cup her face – or throttle her neck – but he seemed to think better of it and lowered them quickly. "Would you listen to what I'm saying for once?" he sighed. "I need you here. You're protected as long as you're here. And… I need your help."

Help? What bullshit manipulation was this now? "I'll consider staying when you get down on your knees and beg," she told him grumpily. "Meanwhile I'll take my chances on my own."

He couldn't stop her from leaving, not unless he wanted to resort to force, and she knew he didn't have that ruthless streak in him. So when all he could do was stare at her listlessly, she stepped to the side and moved around him to reach for the door. She would go back to her dorm and that would be the end of the matter – at least for tonight.

She stopped when she heard a thump behind her and turned.

Kakashi was kneeling on the floor, hands braced apart with his body lowered so far his forehead was almost touching the mat. Sakura stiffened. "What are you doing?" she murmured hesitantly.

"Begging," he said.

"You're freaking me out," she told the back of his head. "Stop it."

"I'm sorry if you feel you've been mistreated here. I know this isn't easy for you, but I am _begging_ you to stay. Please forgive me for being a deeply, _deeply_ flawed man because I need you to cooperate me. Not just for my sake but for Konoha's." He remained poised perfectly in his kowtowing pose.

Sakura tugged gingerly at the back of his shirt. "I wasn't serious about the begging thing."

"I am," he said, lifting his head to look at her. "If it's the only way I can gain your trust."

Her eyebrows shot up. "What the hell do you need my trust for?"

"I have a plan," he said simply.

"A plan."

"Yes."

Well, he always seemed to have a lot of plans, but until now it was rare for him to bother sharing them with her. She stared at his floppy hair suspiciously as her mind whirred, trying to figure out what he was up to this time. "And?"

"Can I get up?" he asked.

"Ah – no," she said quickly. Actually, she was just beginning to like him in this position. "This is probably an improvement for you."

She waited for the biting sarcastic remark about taking a picture to make it last longer. And waited. Kakashi remained perfectly still and mute with all the reverence of Lord Zuru's personal retainer. It was so strange… she'd never seen him bow to anyone, not even the Hokage, and if he did not bow to the Hokage he would not bow to anyone. She's heard him say as much to the daimyou of the wind country after refusing to kowtow to the man, more than willing to insult a major governing regime and cause an international diplomatic crisis for the sole reason that kneeling to foreign leader would be akin to declaring the daimyou had more authority over him than his Hokage.

And here he was, submitting to her in a way he had explicitly refused to for the feudal lords.

Sakura swallowed. "You're really serious, aren't you?" she murmured.

"Yes," he repeated without any hint of mockery.

"Ok, _now _you're creeping me out. You can get up now."

Kakashi climbed back to his feet with a grunt and pointed to the couch. "You should sit down."

This sounded serious. Sakura followed his suggestion and perched herself comfortable on the edge of the luxuriously soft seat. She didn't bother hiding her disgust at the ashtray full of fresh, stinky cigarette butts on the table before her, but Kakashi didn't notice. He'd begun to pace.

"You know about this mission, don't you, and the fact that Tenzou will rebuild all the bridges within a day or two?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"Karasu will hear about it soon enough before he's even finished, and then-"

"You'll be in trouble?" she guessed.

"I can always say I wasn't aware of someone with Tenzou's abilities. The problem is that a failure like this will encourage Karasu or Iwa, or both, to try something more reckless and destructive. I'm not sure I could intercept the next time."

"You can't," she said, like it was obvious. "You've planted yourself in the middle of a war between two major villages, thinking you can keep the two sides from killing each other. I could have told you that this was a stupid long term plan. It's impossible to foil every mission."

"I know," he grunted, "but Iwa only had the balls to declare war because of a contract they made with the Syndicate. We sell them information, we plant agent's behind their enemy's lines to poison the water supplies and contaminate the food stores… blow up their bridges. They're willing to fight _only_ because they have someone employed to sneak around behind Konoha and stab them in the back. If they didn't have the Syndicate, they'd never cope alone."

"So?" she sighed. "They _do_ have the syndicate. _That's_ the whole problem."

"That can be changed," Kakashi told her and suddenly stopped pacing to turn to face her. "I have a plan."

"What plan?" she asked suspiciously.

He hesitated. "I know of a way to drive a wedge between Iwa and the Syndicate. I only discovered it while I returned to Konoha a little while ago, but I can't do it alone. After Karasu and Iwa learn this last mission failed they'll want to try something more direct… but at this point Iwa's confidence in our support will be shaken. If there's a time to strike, it's now."

"What do you have in mind?" She watched his face carefully and noticed he was calculating her just as much.

"The best way I can think of would require someone with expertise in drugs."

"Hm," she hummed. "Like me?"

"Like you," he agreed.

"Are you asking me to help you?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes," he told her wearily, "I figure it would be a miracle if you agreed to help me in _any _way, let alone hear me out. But it's worth a shot, I guess."

She wrinkled her nose. "You're right. The thought of helping you is something that curdles my blood, but if you're telling the truth about wanting to drive a wedge between Iwa and your family-"

"I have no reason to lie-"

"_I'll _be the judge of that," she interrupted. "If you're telling the truth, then this plan would be to both our benefit. In theory, I should have no reason not to help you."

He nodded.

"Other than that you're an asshole holding me here against my will who thinks it's funny to carve his name onto my body and molest me in the night," she continued.

He winced and nodded.

Sometimes differences had to be put aside when working towards a common goal. She'd seen and heard enough evidence to believe Kakashi was truly interested in stopping the conflict as much as she and the rest of Konoha was. It was possible she could trust him on this.

"If this succeeds, what happens to me?" she asked warily. As far as she knew, he planned to keep her here until she died on old age in order to protect his identity within Konoha.

"We'll be free. Both of us," he said with unwavering certainty.

She searched his face for any sign of deception or manipulation, or any tiny hint that he was holding something back. Without his mask, he was easier to read, but that still wasn't saying much. Sakura, however, always knew when this man was lying to her, even if she wasn't aware what that lie involved.

There was nothing but honesty in him now.

Ever so slowly she released a long breathe and shrugged her shoulders. "What do you need me to do?"

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Talking Crow_


	29. The Talking Crow

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Talking Crow

* * *

_I can keep a secret,_

_And throw away the key._

* * *

The door of the doctor's house clicked open without needing much persuasion. Kakashi entered silently, highly alert to his surroundings so that he didn't take one step without being perfectly sure he wasn't seen or heard. If someone spotted him creeping around the doctor's house at this hour of the morning, he'd have some real explaining to do.

Down at the end of the hall a heavy snoring sound emerged from a half-open door. That was reassuring. As long as he could hear that sound, Kakashi knew exactly where the owner of the house was at all times. With that in mind, he began his search.

The first room he checked appeared to be a living room that led onto a kitchen. No good. Kakashi moved back across the hall to a locked door and crouched to prod the keyhole with the same pick he'd used on the front door. When it slid open he took stock of the interior. Glass cabinets, strange paper-covered chairs, a smell of stark sterility, a desk with heaps of notes and files… bingo. This was probably where the items he needed were stored.

Kakashi moved straight to the first cabinet, peering through the glass pane at the rows of small bottles and boxes on the shelves within. The names were jargon – they meant nothing to him. What he was looking for was something very specific, and he reached a hand into his pocket to pull out the scribbled list Sakura had given him in order to remind himself.

"_It depends what you want," _she had told him, sitting on that couch like the prim medical expert she was. _"Depressants are your best bet; barbiturates, benzodiazepines, that kind of stuff. Alcohol is sometimes all you need, but you'll want something more stronger like ethanol. Depends what kind of risk you want to take. Ethanol's useful, but it'll kill you very easily if you get the dose wrong."_

"_It has to be safe,"_ Kakashi had told her. _"I'm not looking to murder anyone."_

"_We're kinda limited by our resource here. All we have is a general practitioner on the other side of the lake who probably won't have anything too advanced. At most he'll have some sedatives, but he might not have the kind we need. I'm not sure he'll even have any sodium thiopental."_

"_What's that?"_

"_What you want from the sound of it."_

"_Just write me a list of everything you need and I'll get it for you."_

Sakura had been awfully specific in her requests, and Kakashi figured he could expect no less from the apprentice of a woman like Tsunade. Not only did she want a list of ridiculously long-named drugs (and her spelling was very questionable anyway) but she'd requested apparatus too. Measuring syringes. Sterile glass test-tubes. He was also _not_ allowed to take whole bottles of drugs because she thought the doctor would notice missing items. Kakashi wondered how he would be able to tell. There were so many bottles and all the contents looked the same that he found it hard to believe even the owner would realise just one or two were missing.

He made sure to check every cabinet and drawer – even the locked ones – for the items on his list. Before long he had around five bottles assembled on the counter before him, a handful of test-tubes in one hand, and a syringe in the other. He looked at the list again, and the last remark underlined at the bottom.

_(DONT CONTAMINATE THE SAMPLES!!)_

What did that mean? Was she telling him not to spit in them? Use clean test-tubes? Use a different syringe to draw each sample?

Better safe than sorry.

With each tube filled by a few cubed centimetres and stoppered at the time, he labelled each with a pen from the desk. The one for sodium thiopental he simply dubbed ST. He was fairly sure this was everything Sakura had asked for.

From somewhere in the back of the house a horrendous little machine began beeping and the doctor stopped snoring. Kakashi froze. A quick glance at his own watch informed him that had probably been the good doctor's alarm clock.

Graced with speed and nimble fingers, Kakashi simultaneously stuffed the tubes into his pouch as he set the bottles back where he'd found them. Footsteps thumped in the hall. His only escape was though the door he'd entered, but he didn't panic. He doubted the first place the man visited in the morning was his surgery-

The handle of the door began turning.

_Medics!_ he thought viciously. They were all as mad and irritating as one another!

The door began to creak open and Kakashi dove behind it, throwing up the swiftest _don't-notice-me_ genjutsu he could. It might have been unnecessary. The door rebounded against him, squashing him with the couple of white coats hanging on the back of it, and even if the doctor looked back he wouldn't have been able to see Kakashi.

"Could have sworn I locked that," the doctor mumbled to himself as he crossed the room.

It was time to go. Kakashi inched out from behind the door and took one slow, silent step at a time as he backed into the hall. He didn't take his eyes off the doctor, who was now reaching under his desk for a triangular beaker of a nameless yellow liquid. From this, he took a long, long drink.

_Medics…_ Kakashi thought again with a shudder as his hand found the handle of the front door and he let himself out of the house with only a whisper of air to mark his passage.

Across the lake, the sun was half-risen, shining unnaturally large and deep red against the still surface of the water. Kakashi broke into a run. He had to get back to Sakura before _her_ alarm clock went off. If he didn't catch her before her first duties, he'd likely have to wait all day to see her again.

As he charged into the main house, he didn't quite count on not being the only one up and about at that hour.

After the first flight of stairs he turned a corner and ran straight into Reika.

He covered for his surprise by blurting an innocuous, "Morning."

She glowered at him. "What are you running for?"

"Exercise," he side, trying to step round her, which was a little difficult when she insisted on stepping with him to keep him blocked. It seemed everyone was out to make his life difficult this morning.

"No, you're running upstairs to the second guest wing. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were rushing back to bed." Her eyes narrowed. "Is there someone _special _waiting for you there?"

That was more or less the case, yes. He gave up trying to edge discreetly around her and resigned himself to a confrontation he'd so far managed to avoid. With every passing day since he'd thrown her out of his bed and then replaced her with a common woman, the pressure had been building inside her almost visibly – every breakfast tenser than the last, every glare filled with more venom than even Sakura could manage. She was due to explode any day now in a shower of poison and vitriol. When that happened, Kakashi hoped he was far, far away.

"Is there something you need, Reika?" he asked, hoping to deflect her attention off Sakura.

"_You_ need to open your eyes," she said, jabbing a finger at his chest with one fist on her hip. "You're going too far, Kakashi."

"Am I?" he said with disinterest.

"You're spending every night with that… that _servant_," she hissed. "It's sick. It's _wrong._ How can you stomach touching that – I don't even want to contemplate how disgusting it is to stick it in a pregnant woman!"

"Well," he said slowly, "it's not really about that."

"Not about what? Sex?" she gave him a lewd look as if this was even worse than she'd thought. "You don't _like _her do you?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Reika," he began wearily.

"No," she interrupted, finger raised once more. "You listen to me, Kakashi! People are talking! They think you're no better than your father, and at this rate you're going to lose your standing! You're the true heir of this clan but you'll never be accepted if you get serious with some low-born piece of ass. In fact, you're _worse_ than your father! At least your mother was a kunoichi – this girl is a nobody! She's just some tart Toshio tossed aside! You're like a goddamn scavenger picking at his leftovers!"

"Hey," he said softly, but sternly. "That's enough."

"No, it's not enough!" she ground out, delicate tears rimming her eyes so perfectly he was sure she'd practised how to cry before a mirror. "I can't believe you'd choose that girl over me! What does she have that I haven't? Why am I not good enough for you?"

"It's not about you," he tried to assure her.

"Of course it is!" she raged. "If you just want to break it off with me, just say so! You don't have to cavort around with other women to push me away!"

"Alright," he said. "I want to break it off."

She almost screamed. "No! We're promised!"

"_You_ decided that, not me."

"I gave you your first blow job!"

"… you decided that by yourself too."

She stomped her feet and bunched her firsts like a little girl. "Kakashi, this isn't fair!" she whined. And then like a switch had been flipped inside her, she moved seamlessly from petulant child to scorned kunoichi. "I could kill her you know. Girls like her are so fragile, they don't last long."

Kakashi fixed her with a sharp look. "Don't joke about that," Kakashi told her icily. "If you harm a hair on her head, I'll kill you myself."

The explicit warning didn't seem to shock her. Instead she just pouted and sighed in disappointment. "You and Karasu. You're both such _babies_. Neither of you can take a joke."

"Excuse me?" Kakashi frowned at her.

"It's not like I'd _really_ do anything," she said, reverting to her coy, juvenile demeanour. "You don't both have to tell me off. And what's so special about this girl? Why do you both have to go leaping to her defence all the time? You, I can understand it, she has you by the cock. But Karasu? Maybe she's fucking him too the way he goes on."

Kakashi's frown only deepened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"_Don't touch that girl, Reika, or I'll make you regret it," _she said, miming what he assumed to be an unflattering version of Karasu's voice. "She seems to get around. She _is_ spreading her legs for him too, isn't she? So gross."

Now that was troubling.

Not for a second did he imagine Sakura would go anywhere near Karasu voluntarily, let alone sleep with him. That wasn't what troubled him. What troubled him was that, behind Kakashi's back, the clan leader had been handing down threats against Sakura's harm.

This was a man who had plunged his hand through his own father's chest because he'd made a drunken nuisance of himself. This wasn't a man who offered protection to anyone unless payment was involved, so to protect a common maid? Kakashi couldn't even begin to figure out the reasoning behind that… and somewhere beneath his ribs another stake of anxiety was hammered into his heart. Another reason to worry. Another potential problem that made it just a little bit harder to breathe.

"I have to shower," he said loftily to Reika, no longer caring to bear the brunt of her anger. He moved around her and headed up the stairs, and if she shouted anything after him he didn't hear it. All he concentrated on now was returning to his room before Sakura left.

When he entered, she'd washed and dressed and had even made the bed like a good little maid. He found her sitting on the couch where he'd left her, and there he also found Pakkun in a near comatose state of bliss at the ear rub he was receiving.

"Did you get everything?" she asked.

"I think so," he replied, handing her the tubes he'd stashed in his pouch.

As she ran her eyes over the labels, he looked around to make sure the doors and windows were sealed. He didn't want anyone happening by them right now in this incriminating situation.

"Good… yes…" Sakura nodded. "This will do. Did you get the pipettes?"

"Uh… he only had syringes."

"Fine. Give me your lighter too." She took everything he handed to her and transported the bundle through to the next room and his desk. She switched on the lamp and arranged two small piles of books as a kind of test tube rack, and in mere seconds she had herself a nice little lab.

But when Kakashi tried to look over her shoulder at what she was doing, she glared him into retreat. "You're not to peek," she told him. "The last thing I need is you memorising how to concoct a truth serum."

He blew out a sigh and went to fall backwards onto the bed, taking some measure of joy in messing up the neatly folded blankets. It smelled strongly of Sakura, and just a little bit of unfulfilled sex, and that was enough to remind him to watch his Ps and Qs, although Sakura was by far an easier person to get along with when she was given drugs to play with. "It may be all for nothing anyway," he said, rubbing his tired face. "I've used truth serums in interrogation before. It's hit and miss."

"You may have the benefit of your victim being ignorant to his dosing," Sakura said, as she carefully measured out her samples. "He'll still be able to lie – they're _always_ able to lie – but he won't know he has a reason to. This stuff works as a depressant, and because it takes more imagination and concentration to lie than tell the truth he'll be more inclined to be honest without realising it. What you'll get is an unusually chatty man for a few hours, and as long as you administer it properly, he won't have his guard up."

"He always has his guard up."

"Make sure you give him sake. When he starts to go, he'll go like a drunk… you'll have to ply him with drinks to keep him or anyone else from realising," Sakura told him. "It's partly an anaesthetic so he won't remember any of what he said or did by tomorrow."

"Is that a good idea? Mixing alcohol with this stuff?"

Sakura said nothing to this.

Kakashi sat up. "This better be safe, Sakura."

"It is," she replied lightly.

"_Sakura,"_ he said more forcefully, "if this harms Karasu-"

"You're the one who wants to drug him – there'll always be an inherent risk in that!" she snapped at him over her shoulder.

"I'm not naïve enough to think you wouldn't use that as an excuse to give a lethal dose." He began to wonder if he'd made a mistake in asking for her help. She wanted to help save Konoha, sure, but she might just as well believe that goal would be better achieved with Karasu's immediate death than with Kakashi's plan.

Sakura turned in her seat to fix an unreadable look on him. After a moment, her jaw jerked stubbornly to the side. "I'm only doing what you asked," she said evenly. "You should know I can't afford to kill another Hatake. I barely escaped with my life the last time. I'm not going to tempt fate a second time, and certainly not with this baby. I'm taking a big enough risk as it is with this serum."

He relaxed slightly. "Alright," he said.

But she didn't seem mollified. She turned back to her work with a stony expression, her hands moving jerkily, betraying her annoyance.

He stood up and drew close enough to touch her shoulder. It froze beneath his hand. "I believe you," he tried to impress on her.

"But you don't trust me," she forced out.

For a moment there, he realised he hadn't. "It's not like you trust me either."

She slammed the used syringe down on the desk. "Of course I trust you!" she cried. "I don't have a choice! I don't have to like you, or be nice to you, but I have to trust you, because you're the only player in this game who probably doesn't want to kill me. When you say 'jump', I have to jump! When you say 'concoct a truth serum to make my cousin talk', I have to do it. I have to _believe_ you're doing the right thing, because if I don't then… then I'm as good as dead anyway."

She was crying. Tears dripped down her cheeks as if from nowhere and she angrily pushed them away. "And why am I always crying? I hate hormones!" she snarled at herself. "I _hate_ being pregnant!"

"It won't last forever," he said gently, kneeling next to her to turn her towards him. "If all goes well, my family will have to abandon the contract with Iwa and they'll leave this place, and after that, you and I can make arrangements for the baby. Then we can go back to Konoha."

She gave a wet sniff. "We?" she repeated dubiously. "The moment you arrive back through the gates, you'll be arrested."

That was true, but… "Only if you tell them what I did," he pointed out to her.

She stared at him stolidly, leaving him uncertain as to whether she agreed or not. This was a girl who still resented him. As it stood, he knew if he let down his guard she would still hand his family over to Konoha.

He sighed and ran his hand over her hair. "I trust you," he told her, "because you trust me. We're in this together, Sakura."

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand – unlike Reika she made no effort to cry in an attractive way – and picked up a stoppered tube with no label and held it out. "Here," she said flatly. "It works best if you inject it, but I'd like to see you try. If he drinks it, it could take a long time to work but he'll be talking like Naruto on sugar either way. You won't have long before he falls unconscious so you have to get him talking fast."

He nodded. "It's better if one of the maids slips it in his drink. You'll have to serve it to him the next time they gather for a party," he told her.

She looked reluctant. "If I get caught-"

"I won't let anything happen to you." He glanced at her belly. "Or him."

"Right," she said glumly.

Kakashi stood, tilting up her chin so he could wipe her cheeks dry with his thumb. "You believe me, don't you?" he asked quietly. "You know if it came down to it, I'd give my life for you in a heartbeat."

She blinked at him in surprise, her spiky lashes framing wide, moist eyes. "Yes… I think you would."

Her full pink lips were parted. They were tempting. They'd tempted him before, back in a little hotel in a north-western province of the fire country, and last night when they'd opened welcomingly beneath his. Without thinking, his thumb brushed over her mouth… and it was just as soft as he remembered.

Sakura's head jerked back.

Kakashi had to swallow and forcibly drop his hand. "Your shift will start soon, you'd better go," he told her.

She nodded numbly, and stood without a word. The glass tube of her carefully measured serum disappeared into the lining of her sleeve and then she was walking away. Gone. And probably only too happy to escape him.

* * *

At five o'clock a storm unlike anything Sakura had seen in this country so far broke out, and like all weather in this place, it came suddenly and with very little warning. The hour before the evening meal was spent running around to every room to shutter every window and door as rain lashed down in a thunderous torrent and lightening split the sky.

Sakura rather enjoyed a good storm, but by the time she was called down to help serve the family and their guests, she wanted nothing more than to go to bed and sleep till morning. Tonight, however, was one night she couldn't beseech Aki to let her off. She and Kakashi had a mission. It was just like old times.

Now Sakura stood in the antechamber outside the room where the Zuru family and the Hatake clan were gathered. Judging from the hearty level of conversation, they weren't troubled by the booms and rumbles going off overhead. Kaoru was a different story. Every time she heard a crack of thunder she flinched, and every time the lights dipped and wavered as if they were about to go out completely, she reached for Sakura's hand.

"It won't hurt you," Sakura tried to reassure her, but she didn't have that much patience for cowardly custards.

"My uncle on my mother's side got struck by lightening," Kaoru quivered out. "He looked like a smoked haddock when we found him."

"Oh." Sakura let Kaoru squeeze her hand as she turned her thoughts back to the people in the other room. Aki and Yui were busy waiting on them in there, and Sakura had decided after Lord Zuru's last reaction to the sight of her it might be best to wait out of sight. The only reason Kaoru was also waiting here was because of her bad nerves.

Another bang crashed overhead, accompanied by a flash. The storm was virtually on top of them.

"Y-You seem anxious," Kaoru commented, which was a bit rich for a girl shaking like a little leaf. "I-Is it the storm?"

"Yes," Sakura lied. She was extremely conscious of one of the items weighing down her left sleeve. How was she going to get it in the sake without the other girls seeing? How was she going to make sure _she_ was the only one who served Karasu his sake?

"Hey, Kaoru," she said softly. "Do you mind if… you serve Lord Zuru?"

"Huh?" Kaoru looked confused.

"I don't want to upset him again," Sakura said.

"Oh. R-Right. Yeah. Um… ok, but you know, if lightning strikes and I spill something on him he'll be furious."

"Would you rather spill something on Karasu?" Sakura asked.

Kaoru went even paler. "I'll serve Lord Zuru," she whispered.

It was half an hour before Aki returned to the antechamber, empty trays stacked in her arms. "Go serve the drinks," she told the two waiting girls, and Kaoru jumped to obey.

She was the one who grabbed the first two porcelain bottles from the sideboard, and Sakura followed more slowly, procrastinating as she selected one bottle, then a second, until she saw Kaoru head into the dining chamber as Aki disappeared into the corridor outside.

Now was her chance.

Sakura reached into her sleeve and grabbed the tube she'd prearranged. The rubber stop made a soft squeak as she plucked it free and upturned a few drops of the contents into one of her selected bottles. There was no smell, but there would be a taste. She had to hope to heaven that the strength of the sake covered it.

Yui appeared in the doorway so suddenly Sakura's heart gave a guilty thump. Somehow she managed to spirit it up her sleeve again with a smooth, nonchalant sleight of hand. She doubted Yui saw anything. Not when ignoring Sakura was still her primary tactic.

Keeping it casual, Sakura picked up her bottles of sake and padded into the dining room. As agreed, Kaoru was serving Lord Zuru first – albeit with a shaky hand – leaving Sakura free to move to the other end of the room where Karasu sat with Kakashi. They both lounged, neither talking, one slumping forward and the other reclining. It was obvious they were bored, but as Sakura approached, Kakashi didn't even glance at her. He gave nothing away that suggested he knew something was different about the meal tonight.

Sakura knelt down carefully between them, reaching out one of the bottles to Karasu's cup.

Automatically he covered it. "…thank you," he declined politely.

Well… that hadn't been part of the plan, although come to think of it, Karasu declined sake more often than anyone else in this room.

Kakashi stirred himself. "Don't be a misery guts. Have a drink," he said.

"I don't feel like one," Karasu sulked.

"So the mission didn't pan out… there'll be others," Kakashi continued. He looked at Sakura. "Pour him a drink."

Sakura tried again, and this time Karasu didn't protest, though he lacked any and all enthusiasm. After she poured Kakashi's drink from the second bottle she stood and moved away, half expecting Karasu to grab her arm and yell something about poison in his cup.

Another crash of thunder. This time Sakura did jump from her own heightened paranoia, and sped up her beeline to the door. She didn't look back. She didn't meet Kakashi's eye and give him a secret nod or a wink to let him know she'd done her part, he would assumed she had anyway. If he trusted her.

Instead she tottered out into the antechamber and muttered some excuse about being tired to Aki. The other girl was naïve enough to believe her, letting her escape work for the rest of the night.

The rest of the mission was all up to Kakashi now.

* * *

"This sake tastes wrong."

Kakashi kept his expression schooled and took frugal sips of his own cup. "Philistine. You have no appreciation for fine wines."

"There's nothing fine about this slop," Karasu said. "It's been poisoned."

Kakashi's heart nearly stopped. "You're joking," he muttered, staring at his cousin, who in turn stared at his cup. Kakashi snatched it out his hand and brought it to his own lips. "Smells alright to me." He took a sip. "Tastes alright too."

"It tastes like cleaning products."

"It's supposed to taste like that." Kakashi handed to cup back. "Don't be such a girl and drink your drink."

At this, Karasu shrugged and did as he suggested with only a faint frown on his brow to show his perplexity at the taste. Inwardly Kakashi relaxed. Karasu drank so little and so rarely he was hardly what you'd call intimate with the variety of sake flavours, and if Kakashi told him his drink was _supposed_ to taste like medicine, who was he to say anything different?

But now Kakashi hoped that small sip he'd stolen wouldn't backfire on him. It was only a miniscule sip… surely it wouldn't have any adverse reactions. It wouldn't do if the only one spilling their guts tonight was _himself_. Kakashi had plenty of things he'd like to keep hidden, thank you.

"It's not that bad, I guess," Karasu downed the rest of his cup and started pouring another.

He wouldn't be doing that if he really suspected it was drugged, Kakashi thought. More likely that had just been one of his weird jokes.

"Your girlfriend has disappeared," Karasu told him.

Kakashi had noticed. Obviously Sakura had felt her duty was done and had vanished in case the plan backfired. "Probably tired," he grunted, taking a sip of his drink and vainly hoping it diluted the anaesthetic he'd taken.

"Does this mean you might leave her alone tonight?" Karasu inquired delicately. "You've had the girl every night since you arrived back here. Do you ever let her sleep?"

"Jealous?" Kakashi asked.

The other man rolled his shoulders and tilted his head, smiling like he was daring Kakashi to believe that. But Kakashi wasn't naïve. Karasu thought of women like he thought of sake; a needless indulgence that created weaknesses in men. In the twenty years he'd known Karasu, he had never seen his cousin show an interest in women – nor in men for that matter.

Somehow Kakashi doubted he'd started now.

"She's pretty," Karasu mused. "but she's not the prettiest here. And she may be strong-minded, but if that's what you were after, Reika beats her hands down."

"Oi," said the eavesdropping girl to Kakashi's left.

Karasu waved a hand at her dismissively. "I don't know what you see in her," he said to Kakashi.

"What do _you _see in her?"

Karasu paused. "Hm?"

"You heard me."

"Yes, I know, but the question was dumb. I don't see anything in her but a nuisance," Karasu now flapped that dismissive hand at Kakashi.

"Is that why you've been telling Reika specifically not to hurt her?" Kakashi asked.

Karasu's eyes flicked to Reika. If there was a look that could universally be understood as _I'll kill you later_, that was it. Reika pretended not to notice. "Don't get me wrong, Kakashi," he said smoothly. "I'd happily watch her die, or even slit her throat ear to ear myself, only you _would_ bitch about it and it's not worth the effort. Reika was just a little upset that you're neglecting your responsibilities to her. I was just trying to reassure her that your interest in this pink candy is just a temporary thing and she'd be better off letting you work it out of your system."

"I _told_ you," Reika sighed loudly. "I was _joking_. I wasn't really going to hurt her."

"You stabbed the last girl who crossed you," Karasu pointed out.

"That was different."

"Yeah, she only made a joke about your nose. I'd hate to think what you'd do to a girl who stole your fiancé away from you." Karasu looked rather deliberately at her nose at that point, and after that Reika was silent, trapped in an internal war of self-consciousness about a nose she'd always been paranoid about.

"See?" Karasu turned to Kakashi. "That was all that was about."

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Reika harming Sakura would almost certainly end any chance of a marriage between himself and Reika, and that was a marriage Karasu had always encouraged. _You need to settle down with a decent girl,_ he'd always said, which Kakashi had always taken to mean Reika, one of his third cousins, a girl who was part of the upper house but had been detached from the main family line for four generations. Karasu would overlook dallying on the side as long as it didn't get in the way of a legitimate clan marriage.

Kakashi idly wondered if he might feel differently if he knew how often Reika expressed mutinous thoughts towards him.

"Reika understands a man has needs," Karasu explained to him, pouring another copious amount of sake. Kakashi was pleased to see he was turning the bottle upside down to dribble the last drops. "A temporary infatuation is just that. Am I right?"

"Hm?" Kakashi pretended not to be listening. So in turn Karasu pretended he didn't care, tipping his head back to unwittingly drink the last of his truth serum. It wouldn't take affect for a while yet.

Which assured Kakashi that the perfectly reasonable explanation he'd just been given about Karasu's issue of protection over Sakura was almost certainly a lie. He'd have to ask more about that later when Karasu was feeling more… honest.

"It's getting a bit noisy in here," Kakashi said, even though it wasn't, "do you want to drink somewhere else?"

Karasu thought for a moment. "Sure, why not?"

It was no good interrogating him in the dining room with Reika listening in on everything they said. She would certainly notice if Karasu started acting like a drugged up drunk, or if Kakashi started asking sensitive questions he shouldn't.

As they left through the antechamber, Kakashi made sure to grab extra bottles of sake from the sideboard to keep his victim carefully watered. "Your room?" he suggested.

"Sure."

"What about the bug?" Kakashi asked.

"Hm? Oh. It's still there, but no one's using it anymore," Karasu replied, and already Kakashi could see he was a little unsteady on his feet. "Maybe no one ever used it at all? Shit, how drunk am I?"

"You're fine. Come on."

It took a little extra patience to walk Karasu to his room. He slowed down, stumbled a few times and had even tried to walk out onto the veranda with the suggestion that they "drink outside!" Kakashi steered him back onto the path to the master guestroom. "There's a storm, remember?" he pointed out.

"Storm? I thought those banging noises were in my head…"

Inside the room, Karasu dropped gratefully to the floor next to the table, leaning on it heavily for support. As soon as Kakashi produced a bottle of sake, he went back to drinking. "This stuff isn't so bad," he remarked. "Cheers you right up."

Kakashi drank at a more sedate pace. "You looked like you needed cheering up. How's the campaign going?"

"Well, the last mission was a dud… but we still have operatives working within Konoha. With the food and water contaminated, half the fighters in their hospital aren't in there because of injury. They're fighting an epidemic. Iwa's getting bolder, but they're still chicken shits. They couldn't even penetrate the fire country border from the waterfall country. It seems like they won't assault Konoha directly until every last Konoha nin is out of commission. Cowards."

"I heard you were having trouble with one of your contacts from Iwa," Kakashi said casually. "What was his name again?"

"God knows." Karasu sighed. "After we finish with Konoha, we'll start on Iwa, but that could be months away."

"It's still progress."

"I promised myself that by the time I was thirty, I would have reduced Konoha to rubble."

"Thirty five isn't so bad."

"Fuck off."

Kakashi shrugged and watched his cousin pour another cup of sake, his hand wandering so freely that half of it went on the table. He didn't seem to notice, or care. "There's someone in Konoha with the same ability as the first Hokage. He can rebuild _anything_ in seconds, and that's posing a serious problem to us."

Poor Tenzou. "You want I should kill him?" Kakashi asked.

"Nah, nah… I have someone working on that already."

"Shit."

"What?"

"I was hoping for some action," Kakashi amended quickly. Now he had one hell of an urgent message to send back home tonight, although he doubted anything short of a particularly strong brand of weed killer had any chance of killing Tenzou. But more importantly, he _had_ to get Karasu talking about his contacts in Iwa.

"Once that bastard is out of the way, things will move faster, but it'll all end the same regardless once I complete the jutsu," Karasu said.

"What jutsu?" Kakashi asked.

"Ya, see? Iwa didn't pay us in money, Kakashi. They paid us in scrolls, on the condition we used them. Psht. Idiots. I can't wait to see their faces when we throw it right back at them." Karasu chuckled darkly. "Why aren't you drinking?"

"Sorry," Kakashi took a long drink and refilled his cup. He had to keep up with the other man if he wanted this conversation to seem like nothing more than loose talk between two drunk friends, rather than a carefully staged interrogation of a drunk man by a sober man. When Kakashi looked up and he saw two versions of Karasu sitting across from him, he felt suitably caught up. "Ssso," he slurred. "What you want to do is get on to your Iwa contact. Maybe one of them can persuade the Tsuchikage to take more decisive action against Konoha."

"Yeah, maybe…" Karasu sighed.

"Do you have any contacts close to the Tsuchikage?" Kakashi asked hopefully.

"One of his advisors," Karasu began, and for a moment his lips were pursed, as if he was about to elaborate further. Then rubbed his temple. "I feel really heavy…"

"You're drunk."

"Fuck off," he grumbled. "I've been drunk before. Not like this though. How are you feeling?"

"Light as a feather."

"_You're_ drunk."

"No, you're drunk.

"No, _you're _drunk."

"Haha, no _you're_ drunk."

"Am I? Oh, dear…" Karasu peered at his cup. "How many have I had?"

"Four," Kakashi supplied helpfully. "I've had five."

"Ffffffuck off," Karasu reached for his bottle again. "I'm not being outdone by a p-pansy like you."

The drugs were definitely beginning to take effect now. Where before Karasu's hand may have wobbled as he poured, now he couldn't even lift the bottle off the table. Sakura had told him to keep plying the drugged man with drinks, but surely this was enough. She didn't particularly care about liver damage but Kakashi did, and he reached out to take the bottle from his cousin.

"Oi!" Karasu grew annoyed. "Give that back."

"You'll be sorry tomorrow."

"_You'll_ be sorry tomorrow."

"No, _you'll _be sorry tomorrow." And before Karasu could respond, Kakashi upturned the bottle and drank the last of the sake in three big gulps.

He nearly fainted.

"That's just showing off," Karasu slurred. "Overcompensater. I can still kick your ass in a fair fight – and I'm better looking, and smarter, and my dick has two inches on yours."

So much for a truth serum. "You've never seen my dick."

"Not lately. That maid's been keeping it in her handbag."

"Watch it," Kakashi snapped, slamming the bottle down.

"What're you gonna do?" Karasu raised his eyebrows and spread his arms. "Bring it on, Fatty Lover." He probably didn't really expect Kakashi to launch himself over the table, aiming right for his hair.

The two men tumbled to the matted floor, too drunk to coordinate any serious hits. Kakashi pulled at Karasu's hair and Karasu pinched at his face until one of them cried mercy and they fell into separate panting heaps beside one another. Exactly who had given up first was anyone's guess.

"You're too much like your father," his cousin panted angrily, hand resting on his heaving chest. "Letting yourself be drawn away by a woman. What am I supposed to do with you? I had to listen to _eighteen _years of my father bitching about your father for abandoning us…I had to sit through eighteen years of hearing how we'd once been an elite clan – until Sakumo walked out and left the clan in the hands of his entrepreneurial little brother who turned us into a clan of businessmen. By the time I finally killed him, it was already too late. We had money and contacts, but we'd almost stopped being ninja. It's never been the same. When Sakumo walked out the purity of the bloodline was broken. My father was never meant to be leader, Kakashi. He was branch family, like me, like my children are. The clan will never be the same again until the real heir is back where he belongs."

Kakashi listened, disorientated. He'd never heard this. He knew his father had once been leader of this clan, but what did that matter? "What do you mean like your children _are? _What are you on about?"

"I'm not the true heir of this clan. Not while you're alive."

"Are you saying you want to kill me?" Kakashi asked uncertainly.

"I'm saying I want what's best for the clan, and that's not me," Karasu ground out. "The descent of leadership was an unbroken chain for over two hundred years, handed down from eldest son to eldest son, right back to the founder. Then your father left. But _you're_ still here, and you're the one this clan should have fallen to."

Kakashi held his hand out, palm up. "Ok, hand it over."

"Fuck off," his cousin grumbled. "I still have plans to enact just yet. You stick to your lily pad."

"My what?" Kakashi frowned, wishing he wasn't so drunk right now. "What plans?"

For a while Karasu said nothing, he was thinking hard. Kakashi suspected he was tying to lie. "You have to become Hokage," he said eventually.

"Maybe you can do the same thing in Iwa," Kakashi suggested.

"Huh?"

"You know, get your contact there to usurp the Tsuchikage. What's his name again?"

"The contact?"

"Yeah."

Karasu shook his head. "Atashi would make a terrible kage."

"That's kinda the point," Kakashi said, turning away so Karasu would not see the triumphant smile on his face.

Atashi.

_Gotcha._

* * *

Sakura couldn't sleep. How could she when she'd drugged the leader of an international crime syndicate? One which happened to be the cousin once removed of the baby she was carrying.

Kakashi had probably been found out by now. He was a strong fighter, but he would be overwhelmed against his family, and perhaps right at this moment people were coming for her. Any minute now the door would burst open and-

_Bang._

The door burst open.

Sakura shot upright with a start, almost dislodging the small pug curled up on the bed beside her, chin resting on her ankle. Pakkun looked up too, but not so much with surprise but with curiosity. His collar tinkled in the dark as both bed fellows watched the partition door without moving.

There was a thump, then a crash, and then what sounded like a soft, slurred swear word… followed by a slightly devious laugh.

Pakkun's ears went down. "Oh, no," he sighed, before scrambling off the bed to hide beneath it.

She might have asked why the hell he was hiding – and if she should hide too – but that was when the partition door slid back and Kakashi fell into the room. Sakura had never seen anything like it. It wasn't like watching a man trip over the wooden tracks, and there was no actual tripping involved. Instead he looked like a man who realised the horizontal floor he was standing on was fast becoming a vertical wall, and he'd _tried_ to hold onto the doorframe to keep up with the tipping world only… the floor was actually still a floor, and suddenly he was on his back looking bewildered.

"Well, fuck me…" he said, sounding surprised.

"Are you _drunk?"_ Sakura gasped.

He tilted his head back to look at her. "Oh… no." Then he began to laugh at his masterfully executed lie.

There were many identifiable ways to tell just how drink Hatake Kakashi was. If he smiled at jokes, it was one glass. If he laughed at jokes, it was two. If he was telling jokes, it was around three glasses. If he was laughing at his own jokes, it was four. And if he was laughing spontaneously at nothing at all, he'd had too damn much.

Sakura didn't think she'd seen him this drunk since his thirtieth birthday party – a night which had made the other three members of team Kakashi take a ritualised vow to never _ever_ allow that man near that much alcohol again.

"You were supposed to get _him_ drunk," Sakura pointed out. "What happened?"

"I had to drink, or he'd be a suspicious sausage, so I drank _so _much…" he sobered a little. "Then I threw up in a vase."

"There are no vases here," Sakura deadpanned. "Just priceless twelfth century artefacts."

"And then I drank some more," he went on more cheerfully. "And then the floor hit me."

Sakura slid out of bed to come stand over him. She peered into his sweaty face and noted his almost totally dilated right eye. If he'd been her patient, she would have ordered a stomach pump. "Are you ok?" she asked, trying not to sound concerned.

"I am…" he began, pondering his choice of words carefully, "drunk."

"You'd better have some water," she told him, moving to the nightstand to pick up the pitcher of water. "And at least tell me if you got what you wanted out of him."

"That, and a whole lot of other crap," he said, twinkling his fingers in the air. "Did you know he used to have a pet cat called 'Mogu?' He put her in the tumble-drier. I think it explains an awful lot. What kind of awful person does something like that to an animal?"

Sakura closed her eyes. "Kakashi. That was you."

"No!"

"You told me that story five years ago! You said you were two, and you cried for weeks afterwards!" She returned to his side with a glass of water. "And you're right, it does explain a lot. What kind of awful man would do that to a cat and then hold it against all cat kind for the rest of his life?"

"I don't remember this event you speak of," he said suspiciously, but he accepted the water nonetheless.

It reminded her vaguely of the last time she'd handed him a glass of water after he'd drunken too much. It was the night right before the one in which they'd slept together. But this thought only seemed to occur to Sakura, Kakashi was too drunk to even hold his head up. "The drug worked then?" she asked

"Yes. I even tested it myself," he said.

"Oh, no."

"Yeah…," he smiled sleepily. "You could ask me anything you want and all sorts of embarrassing truths might come spilling out of my mouth."

Somehow, Sakura doubted even truth serum could extract honesty from this chronically insincere man. Not ten seconds ago he'd tried to pass off his history of animal abuse as someone else's. Still… "When did you last wet the bed then?"

"At twenty-one. I was drunk then too."

Sakura was impressed. "And here's me without any diapers."

"It's ok… I already went."

Unfortunately that probably meant there would be more than one desecrated artefact waiting for her tomorrow. "I think we should get you into bed," Sakura said with patience that surprised even her as she reached down to grasp his arm. He rose awkwardly, but when she tried to urge him in the direction of the bed, he stood his ground and shook his head.

"I have… I have stuff to do," he protested. "I have to send a message to Tenzou or he's going to get stabbed."

"He always gets stabbed," Sakura pointed out.

"There's five other agents in Konoha… it could be any one of them. Pakkun – I know you're there you little fleabag."

"Yes, boss?" came the tired response from under the bed.

"Warn Tenzou now… go go, shoo shoo… tell him I heard it off the street. _Be vague._"

"Right, boss."

The dog vanished eagerly as Sakura stared at Kakashi mutely through hooded eyes. Five, huh? She filed that away for future reference.

"… I have to send a message to the contact," he said, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. "Tonight."

Sakura looked at him and doubted he'd even be conscious in a few minutes. "You're too drunk," she said. "Tell me what to do and I'll do it for you."

He looked at her blearily, and as drunk as he was there was still a spark of sobriety in his eye as he contemplated her suggestion. After a moment he decided he could trust her. "Yes," he said flopping onto his side. "Alright."

"You have to tell me what to do though," she reminded him.

"Oh? Oh, yeah. Go down to the mews and find the crow that flies to the codename Atashi. They're tagged. You have to check their wings," he said blithely, closing his eyes and waving his hand in the air as if he was conducting some unheard melody.

Sakura caught the errant hand and helped take his glove off, followed by the holster around his thigh. "Then what?" she asked. "What message do I have to write?"

"Nothing. No message. It's a code," he murmured happily, and as she reached over him to loosen the black band covering his eye, he slipped his hand over her bottom appreciatively.

The last time he'd tried that exact same move she'd been too drunk to mind. Even then she'd punched him for his trouble, and right at this moment Sakura had to hold herself rigid and bite the inside of her cheek to keep from grabbing one of the knives from the holster she'd just removed and sticking it in the offending hand. It was worth remembering that whatever blood she spilled tonight would have to be cleaned up by herself tomorrow. This was enough to calm her violent urges, and instead she settled for just grabbing his arm and pinning it to his chest where it could do no harm. "What's the code?" she asked him slowly.

He was losing consciousness. The room was dark, he was stretched out on a luxuriously soft bed, and his booze addled brain had decided it was closing down for the night. "Your pillow smells nice," he mumbled.

Sakura felt her face heat up and she gave him a rough shake. "Tell me what the code is!" she hissed. "I'll send it tonight."

"The garden," he said. "Go to the garden and find a red flower. Send that."

Sakura waited. "Is that it? A red flower? What does that mean?"

"It means that by tomorrow, the Syndicate will be just as much an enemy of Iwa as it is of Konoha," he said, slipping his hand free to tap her nose. "Do you trust me on that?"

"Yes." What choice did she have?

"Good girl," he said smiling.

And for good measure he patted her bottom one last time.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Betrayal_


	30. Betrayal

A/N: I know I've been a bit slow with the updates lately, sorry about that. The story's not in trouble, but I have been a bit busy lately to get round to editing the drafts. Hopefully I'll have more free time now so you should see more frequent chapters. I can't say exactly how many more chapters there will be. I've just finished the draft for 36, so I'm estimating it'll end around 40 or so. This is a Big. Effing. Story. :E

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Betrayal

* * *

_I am the wilderness locked in a cage._

_I am a growing force you kept in place._

_I am a tree reaching for the sun._

_Please don't hold me down.  
_

* * *

Another cheer rose up from one side of the river bank as a cascade of rockets shot up from the other to explode and fill the night sky with a rainbow of coloured sparks. As much as Ino enjoyed the show, she couldn't help but shiver slightly against the chilly air. Even though she'd managed to squeeze herself right between Shikamaru and Chouji on this blanket, and had formed herself a veritable cage of body heat, there was still snow on the ground and winter in the air, and Ino doubted it was doing her skin any good.

"I'm cold," she complained needlessly.

"You should try wearing clothes. They're great," Chouji recommended.

"Oh yeah?" Did she detect a potshot at her dress sense there. "If you have it, flaunt it. I'm not going to have legs this great forever, or a stomach so fabulously toned."

"Maybe I should flaunt my fabulously toned stomach too?" Chouji wondered, reaching for the hem of his thick sweater.

"No," Shikamaru said firmly.

"Put it away!" Ino cried, horrified. "This is supposed to be a family friendly event."

Another series of pops lit the sky and Shikamaru grunted as he glanced around at the illuminated crowds surrounding them. There was some rather family _unfriendly _stuff going on along this river bank if anyone cared to look closely enough.. "Nah," he said to Ino. "Everyone's celebrating because Iwa retreated and our fighters came home. But it's naïve, if you ask me. Until we get word from Iwa directly that the war is over, all they're doing is regrouping or something. The fighting will start again in a few weeks probably. Or even days."

"Enjoy the break while it lasts," Ino told him wisely.

He gave an annoyed click of his tongue. "How can I? The hokage has me on crow watch duty. Every crow that passes through or near Konoha has to be captured or killed."

"Random," Chouji commented.

"What with the rumours flying about that the Syndicate communicates using crows, and after seeing the invasion party that destroyed the bridges turn into crows, she's probably right. Iwa may have retreated for now, but the spies are still going to be operating. She seriously wants them caught."

"Tell me about it," Ino sighed. "I don't think she's that far off from asking me to abduct random people off the streets and invading their brains to find out if they're Syndicate members."

He shrugged. "Can you blame her? People have died because of the water contamination."

"_And_ they're the reason you can't find fresh pork around here for the life of you," Chouji grumbled.

"Poor Chouji." Ino patted his shoulder. "Rationing sure hits some of us harder than others."

"You're enjoying this mandatory diet regime, aren't you?" Shikamaru deadpanned.

"Sure. It's nice to have someone else count my calories for me," she replied perkily.

Chouji sniffed the cold air. "You know, it's funny that when you start talking about food… you start to smell it…" he muttered.

"I can't smell anything," Shikamaru told him.

"Guys, I swear someone's having a fry up around here." Chouji stood, turning in a circle to try and locate its source.

"He's hallucinating," Ino whispered worriedly to Shikamaru.

"I better go with him then," he whispered back, standing too.

"Wait – no – Shikamaru!" Ino protested, realising her cocoon of warmth was abandoning her and she was now exposed to the cold on all sides. "Chouji! Get back here!"

It was no good. When Chouji smelt his favourite food cooking, he couldn't be dragged away. Ino wrapped her arms around her legs and shivered. It was now even harder to enjoy the sparkling fireworks without her friends there to keep her warm and entertained.

She was just resigning herself to the prospect that she would have to find someone else to cuddle up to, when another boisterous blond collapsed beside her. "Hey, Ino!"

"Naruto!" she greeted happily. He was a warm-blooded mammal, and that was _just_ what she needed right now. "When did you get back?"

"This morning - had to help fix the last of the bridges on our way back, though" he told her, and she could tell he'd been drinking from the all too cheerful glaze on his face and his utter imperviousness to the cold despite having no coat. "Don't mind me sitting here, do you? But Sakura's not here so…"

A hot jab of anxiety went right through Ino at the mere mention of their mutual friend. "I guess so," she mumbled. _Please don't talk about Sakura,_ she silently begged him. She'd been dreading this boy's arrival home for the pure and simple reason that one of their main topics of conversation happened to be a girl who she had been forbidden from talking about by the Hokage herself.

"She still on that mission?" Naruto asked curiously. He clearly was not open to psychic pleadings.

"Yeah… busy, busy, busy, that's our Sakura!" she offered a strained laugh. Holy shit, if this guy ever found out his favourite girl was busy being pregnant…

"I hope she's ok," he sighed. "She seemed kinda off when she left."

"Oh, I'm sure she's… fine." This was at least truthful. Kakashi sent weekly updates to the Hokage through his summons reassuring them that Sakura was well. He'd made it more or less clear that she wouldn't be returning to Konoha until after the baby was born, but whether she would return with it was unknown.

"I haven't seen Kakashi-sensei around either since I got back," Naruto lamented, looking around. "Is he still on his mission too?"

Ino panicked. "I – uh – no – I don't think so-"

"Oh, hey! There's Tenzou! He'll know!" Naruto grabbed a handful of snow from the grabbed and lobbed it through the darkness to hit an unsuspecting man on the back of his head.

Not a perfectly polite way of attracting someone's attention, and Tenzou turned warily to fix the pair with a bemused expression. He detached from the group of jonin he was speaking to and wandered over. "Is there something you want?" he asked as he drew near, a bottle of beer in his hand. "Or was that just general abuse?"

"You're close to Kakashi-sensei, right?" Naruto asked. "Have you seen him around lately?"

Tenzou glanced at Ino for a moment, looking perfectly casual. When he spoke, however, his voice had risen a few octaves. "Kakashi?" he repeated. "I think he's away on a mission with Sakura right now."

"With Sakura?" Naruto gave them both a confused look, but Ino studiously turned her head away so he wouldn't see the tension on her face. "Well… what are _they_ doing together?"

Tenzou shrugged helplessly. He was under the belief that if Sakura knew what was good for her, she would have put a restraining order on that man a long time ago.

On the other hand, Ino scowled sulkily, still dismayed that Sakura had ever asked _Kakashi_ of all people to keep her company through one of the most emotionally and physically trying periods of a woman's life. What happened to girls sticking together? She'd only asked Kakashi because she had a dumb crush on him….

Naruto glanced between them, slightly confused at the almost… _guilty_ silence that his question had elicited. "Is Sakura really alright?" he wondered.

"Sakura is _fine_!" Ino said loudly. "She's the same as she ever was!"

"And Kakashi is just helping her because he's a good guy," Tenzou added. "Yeah. Why would he need more reason than that?"

Now Naruto seemed even more concerned. "Ok… I guess," he mumbled. "Um – I see Sai over there. I better go say 'hi'. Excuse me."

He beat a hasty retreat, which was only understandable given the sudden frostiness aimed at him from both sides that put the snow around them to shame. Ino heaved a sigh of relief as he disappeared into the crowds, glad she was no longer in any danger of blabbing delicate information, but still dreading the inevitable '_next time'_. Ino honestly didn't _want_ to sell Sakura out, but compulsively enlightening the ignorant was something she'd been born to do.

Tenzou sat down beside her.

"Have you ever had to keep a terrible secret to yourself?" Ino asked him droll, "Because if people knew what _you_ knew some of them would end up hurt, but you can't help but feel that people _should _know what you know _because_ it would be important enough to hurt them in the first place?" She sighed into her knees. "You know?"

"Not in the slightest," Tenzou said shortly. "I'm not keeping any secrets and if anyone has told you otherwise, they're lying."

They sat in morose silence for a little while, watching the magnificent explosions above, each thinking of their own terrible secrets and exactly how much longer either of them could hold on now that someone like Naruto was back in town.

Then Tenzou coughed and leant over. "You wanna come back to my place?" he asked, in a way he probably thought was nonchalant.

Ino shot him an appalled look, as if she couldn't believe his cheek to make such a dirty suggestion at a time like this. That was until she remembered how cold she was, and then she just shrugged and said, "Alright."

* * *

A frown had settled on Tsunade's face. Through the window of her office she watched the distant firework display over the river – each burst of colour followed seconds later by a muffled _pop,_ a sign of just how far away the celebrations were.

"You're sure?" she asked Shizune quietly.

Her assistant apprentice looked at the notes in her hand. "All of our spies in Iwa are reporting the same thing," she said again. "There's no mistake. The Tsuchikage was killed by one of his advisors, and it was done in the name of the Syndicate."

"This is why they've retreated?" Tsunade guessed.

Shizune nodded. "The timing seems to suggest that, yes. But what this means for us…"

"Who knows?" Tsunade sighed, turning back to the array of profiles on her desks. "The new Tsuchikage won't be any less belligerent than the last but without the Syndicate's support, they may be less inclined to attack us again."

"That's good though, right?" Shizune said hopefully.

"Possibly. But the fact that the Tsuchikage's highest advisor was a member of this syndicate worries me," she replied softly. "Do they have an agenda against all the villages, after all? I prefer it when my enemies are predictable… not the ones that strike like rabid dogs against their own allies."

"Perhaps there is trouble within the organisation itself?" Shizune asked. "A betrayal?"

"Maybe. We can't speculate. Half our information turns out to be wrong these days anyway. First Kakashi tells me the first offensive push will be at the grass country border, and it comes from waterfall instead. Then one of the spies in Iwa reports they possess the six-tailed bijuu, only that turned out to be propaganda. We're just lucky they've backed off. We need time to recover here." Tsunade rolled her shoulders and held out her hand. "Are those the latest profiles?"

Shizune passed them over. "There may be something in one of them… I don't know. Shikamaru selected them based off keywords associated with the Syndicate."

Tsunade drifted her hand over the pile, splaying the folders so she could see the names and faces attached to every new profile. One leapt out at her, startlingly familiar… a masked face with wild, white hair and dark, deep-set eyes. There was no name but the kind of nickname all these underworld creatures seemed to go by. Karasu. _Crow._

Tsunade blinked and shook her head. "You can go home, Shizune. I'll keep looking these over…"

* * *

The day Sakura knew their plan had finally worked was the day she arrived to serve the first meal of the day and found only the Zuru family. It was like how the breakfast room used to be before the Hatake clan had arrived, and immediately she knew something was up, and at the first opportunity she wandered across the house in search of information.

Through one of the windows she spotted a commotion in the courtyard and hurried down to look. Crowds of people had gathered – mostly servants and garden staff, but also what seemed like the majority of the Hatake clan. Her eyes landed on Kakashi first, but he like everyone else had their attention fixed on something in the middle of the plateau. Through the thick barrier of bodies, Sakura couldn't make out what held everyone's interest.

Someone caught her arm as she tried to move forward. "This isn't for girls' eyes," a man warned her, not unkindly. It was only then that Sakura realised she'd been wading out of her depth. Only men were gathered around this object of curiosity; girls and women were hanging back around the edges of the courtyard, and against Sakura's kunoichi instinct she forced herself to retreat to the entrance of the mews where Aki and Kaoru were standing with some scullery maids. Sometimes it was hard to remember she was in a much more conservative and traditional culture than the one she'd grown up in.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"It's horrible," Kaoru said, hands clasped close to her mouth. "It's a body. I can hardly look." But even though she said this, her eyes were riveted on the spot where the presumed body lay in case anyone might step aside and allow her the tiniest glimpse.

"Someone was killed again?" Sakura asked curiously.

Aki shook her head. "Not here. It's the body of one of Iwa's top advisors to the Tsuchikage… a whole lot of them arrived a little while ago, saying he assassinated their kage. They say he's one of Karasu's people."

"They said 'Here, have him back' and they wanted their payment returned in full," Kaoru added, still watching closely. "Oh – ew – there's a lot of blood over there!"

Sakura contrived to look mystified and shocked with an adequate amount of revulsion that would be fitting for someone who'd heard of a murder which had nothing to do with them in the slightest.

Inwardly she felt nothing but satisfaction. She'd been worried after more than a week of hearing nothing, in case some last unforeseen hitch in their plan had interrupted their goal. The crow she'd sent with the red orchid had returned empty clawed to its perch after just a few days, but no word of any assassination attempt had returned with it.

"The Tsuchikage is dead then?" she asked Aki, just to be certain she'd heard right.

"Seems so," Aki said, nodding. "Seems like they've withdrawn from the war with Konoha too. They don't trust us anymore and they won't fight alone, so it only figures…"

Sakura's eyes sought out Kakashi once more. He looked as angry and concerned as everyone else surrounding the body, and he appeared to be talking in undertones with another white haired relative. But he had to be pleased. He could act well, but underneath he had to be the smuggest bastard in the whole estate right now. She almost smiled. How many men could effectively bring an abrupt halt to a _war_ and leave everyone around him reeling in ignorance of the fact?

Someone brought a thick brown sheet and wrapped it around the body, and the moment it was carried away out of sight, the crowd began to disperse. There was always work to be done. No one could stand around rubber necking _all_ day, including Sakura and the other maids, so with great reluctance she began to move back towards the house. But before she entered through one of the servants side doors, she chanced another look over her shoulder in search of Kakashi… and saw him looking straight back at her.

Impulsively she smiled, unable to stop herself. It was the smile she always gave him after a mission had been a success and everything had gone according to plan. For despite all their differences and difficulties, right now they were teammates again, celebrating just another win for Team Konoha.

Without returning it, he looked away.

"Come on." Kaoru shooed her for blocking the door.

"Sorry," Sakura apologised lightly.

"Were you smiling at Kakashi-sama?" Kaoru teased.

Sakura blushed. "I was not."

Aki looked back at them in confusion as they traipsed down the stairs to the undercroft. "What?"

"I think she's growing quite fond of that Hatake Kakashi," Kaoru went on in the same teasing tone. "He's really quite the gentleman."

"I don't like him," Sakura denied strenuously. "Not even slightly."

"Sakura and Kakashi, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g," Kaoru sang. "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a ba- ow!"

Sakura let go of her hair. "Don't you dare finish that," Sakura threatened, almost seriously. "I do not like Hatake Kakashi!"

Aki flicked dark eyes over her. "Good," she said. "There'll be trouble one of these days, Sakura, and he'll be in the middle of it. Sleeping with him is one thing, but don't get attached to him. And for heaven's sake, make sure he doesn't get attached to you, or he'll only take you down with him."

"Spoil sport," Kaoru told her.

Sakura agreed, but otherwise felt Aki was probably bang on the mark.

* * *

A smile wasn't much, but it always seemed to warm him from the inside out. Perhaps it was because she smiled so rarely for him these days, but… even when they'd been close friends, all her smiles had seemed to trigger some sort of chemical reaction in his blood. A reaction that invariably did something to his brain that made him want to make her smile for him as often as possible. It was harder these days, but perhaps she had a soft spot for men who saved the village with her.

Nevertheless, Kakashi had to keep himself tightly schooled. There was a dead body on their hands and a broken contract with Iwa, and though Karasu looked calm and almost placid as he directed his clan, it was clear that he'd perhaps never been as angry at anything as he was at this moment.

"Has anyone checked the mews?" Karasu asked quietly.

"Yes," Seito volunteered. "All the birds are accounted for."

"That doesn't mean anything," Kakashi pointed out. "Someone could have sent him the order to kill a while ago. The bird may have had plenty of time to return before the agent carried out the job."

"You aren't suggesting one of _us _is responsible for this?" one of his aunts demanded, utterly disbelieving.

"Kakashi's right. We can't rule it out," Karasu said pragmatically. "However, it's more likely Atashi acted alone, or that he's being used as a scapegoat for someone else who discovered his connection to us. That is all I'll accept for now. We're not going to let fear or paranoia make us turn on each other in a misplaced witch hunt; that may even be Iwa's intention. That, and I know I would trust anyone here with my life."

Kakashi looked at the ground.

"That said…" Karasu sighed, "this has to be fixed. Without the support of a major village, we don't stand a chance against Konoha, and Iwa is the only one ready and willing to fight with us."

"Not anymore," someone pointed out flatly.

"A mere misunderstanding, that's all," Karasu said with a shrug. "Easily rectified if we approach the new Tsuchikage and explain the situation with honesty. Hell, the new guy may even be better for us than the last."

"You think you can convince him?" Kakashi asked him.

Karasu shrugged again. "Can't hurt to try."

"It might, if they decide to kill us on sight," he returned. "They've designated us as an enemy now. It wouldn't be safe-"

"No one's asking you to come," Karasu snapped back. "You _can't_ come anyway. You're a war criminal over there and it wouldn't make a good impression if I turned up preaching peace with a man who infamously killed over a hundred of their men in the last war. Good job on that, by the way."

Kakashi ignored the compliment. "You're going to Iwa?"

"We have no choice," Karasu said, shaking his head. "I don't know how a contact got the order to kill, but it was an error, and I'm not having one stupid little error ruin everything we've worked for. This _has_ to be rectified. The only way that can be done is through face to face talks."

Kakashi considered this carefully. "When will you leave?"

"Ah… immediately, I reckon, before they start wanting their money back. I better go pack some underpants." He waved a hand to the rest. "I need twenty men or so, and a token lady or two so we present well."

"Karasu," Kakashi called after him. "Be careful."

"Maybe you should be careful, Kakashi? It might be best if you head back to Konoha for a while and keep your head low?" He gave him a beatific smile before turning away to begin calling out the names of those he would be taking within him.

No longer needed, Kakashi slipped away. He didn't know where he was going, knowing only that he wanted somewhere quiet and secluded, and before he realised it he was walking through the garden to take a seat on one of the stone benches by one of the many ponds. With no one else around, it was just him, the breeze, and the koi fish. The only sound was the tinkling of water coming from a bamboo spout, and the occasional _clunk_ of the kakei as it filled, tipped, and dropped back against the rocks.

After a while, Kakashi tuned these noises out, too wrapped up in his thoughts to perceive anything further away than the end of his nose. Everything had worked according to plan, there was no denying that. Karasu would not entertain the thought of a betrayal from within, which meant Kakashi's neck was safe for now at least. But the man was still a danger to others as well as himself. Karasu was one who had all the reassuring strength of an elite ninja and the charisma that only the son of an entrepreneurial businessman could possess. He could have the new Iwa regime eating out of his hand in no time.

Konoha still wasn't safe.

But there was only so much Kakashi could do…

With a sigh he pressed his face into his hands, feeling tired and aged and almost irrational in how much he wanted to go home. And not to the philosophical home that went wherever his loved ones went; he wanted his materialistic home – the one with _his_ bed, and _his_ desk, in _his_ village, where he'd lived _all_ his life. That was his home. He was not a nomad, not like the rest of his family. Like his father he longed for one place and one life where the people he loved were gathered and protected.

Why couldn't Karasu understand that?

Just then he heard footsteps drawing nearer. Kakashi lifted his head and looked around in time to see Sakura emerge from behind a thicket of bamboo. She was smiling, if a little shyly. Well, at least someone was today besides Karasu.

She sat down next to him on the bench, something she did much more slowly and carefully these days, and always at a respectable distance from him. "Did it work?" was all she asked.

"Yes," he said, "and Karasu is taking most of the clan and leaving."

Sakura's face brightened even further. "You were right." She sounded pleased. "You said they would leave."

It was like the old days when she used to flatter him so easily. Normally he might have appreciated it, but right now he felt like the least deserving man in the world. He might have preferred it if she still spitting at him and smacking him round the head with mops. But there was always the chance that by the end of this conversation she would have pushed him into the pond.

"They're leaving to make amends with Iwa," he said tiredly. "It takes a week to travel there… perhaps one or two more to convince the new Tsuchikage to trust the Syndicate again, and within a month we'll be back where we started."

"We might not," Sakura said, remarkably resistant to his pessimism. "Do you think Konoha would trust anyone who murdered the Hokage?"

"If they realised they weren't the responsible party… maybe."

"I don't think that's likely," she said contrarily, framing her face slightly to the side as she gazed at the coloured fish. "But… maybe we should take the opportunity to go back to Konoha?"

He felt something hard settle in his belly. "Hm," he hummed noncommittally. So this was how she was going to do it. "Wasn't the whole point of you running away to this place because you wanted to hide your condition from everyone?" he pointed out mildly. "You're over six months pregnant now, so do you really think no one's going to notice?"

"That's really the least of my problems these days," she muttered.

"Do you still plan to give it away?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said flatly, without any real thought or feeling behind the answer. Her pregnancy was still a touchy issue and one she visibly disliked talking about with him.

But she could only avoid the matter for so long. "I think…" he began carefully after a deep breath, "I think, if that's what you want, we should consider using the coming weeks to find the baby some parents."

Sakura blinked at him, startled. "Oh," was all she said.

He waited. "Don't you agree?" he pressed.

"I guess," she said, but she sounded uncertain.

"You want to find good parents, right?" he asked. "You weren't planning to just drop it off on a random doorstep and leave its fate up to chance, were you?"

"Of course not!" she responded crossly. "I just… I just figured I had more time. I'm only twenty-nine weeks along."

He shrugged. "All that means is you only have about two months left. Do you really want to procrastinate until it's there in your arms and you don't know what to do with it?"

For a moment she struggled to find words, until she settled for glaring at him. "I don't need you organising my life for me!" she ground out. "I don't recall asking for that!"

"I said I would help you." He glanced over the prominent curve of her stomach and then quickly away at the kakei fountain. "It wouldn't be fair to leave you to struggle alone, and I doubt this is going to be an easy task. The sooner we try to make arrangements, the better."

"Then how do you propose we go about this?" she asked, as if dreading the answer.

"I was thinking we could go to Amegakure," he told her vaguely. "It wouldn't be my first choice, but it's within a day's walking distance which would be best for you. And though it isn't the most prosperous village, the people there are about as kind and decent as you'll find anywhere else."

For a while she said nothing, fiddling compulsively with one of the hems of her sleeves. "What about pollution?" she asked thickly. "I-I hear some kids get sick there because of the pollution."

"Just rumours," he reassured her. "Sort of like how Konoha kids are supposed to be overfed little tubs of lard."

"Oh. I didn't know that's how people thought of Konoha," she grunted.

He heaved a faint sigh and glanced over at her. She'd grown pale and vacant since they'd begun talking, and her hands were linked tightly over her belly. It was understandable for her to be nervous about this, but he sensed it was also more than that. "Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked again.

She half turned her head towards him, but her eyes remained fixed on some point before her. "If we stay in the Rain country, the Zuru family would never leave me alone," she pointed out.

"I'm not going to give them a choice in the matter."

She shook her head as if he didn't understand. "They think this kid is their heir – they're _not_ going to let me stroll off to Ame without pulling all their resources," she said. "They could send members of your own clan after me."

"They won't hurt you if you're under my protection." He noticed she still didn't look spectacularly convinced and swept away by his plan. "We probably won't come back here, Sakura. If we got to Ame, there's every chance we could be there until after the baby is born."

Sakura looked up at him warily. "You know I could contact Konoha from Ame, don't you…?"

He knew that perfectly well. The end of the war would come, and so would this baby, and he couldn't take the risk of the baby winning the race and being born here while the conflict was still going on. Besides… there were already signs that she trusted in him enough to be trusted in return. And like she said, sometimes you just you needed to trust when reality offered little alternative. "Then I'm putting myself in your hands, aren't I?" he said quietly with a faint smile.

The look she gave him was a thoughtful, but carefully unreadable one. Gradually she turned away and pushed herself to her feet. "When do we leave?" she asked. "I need time to say goodbye to my friends and see the doctor-"

"Keep the goodbyes short and don't tell anyone where we're going," he warned. "Gather your things and we'll leave tonight once Karasu and his group have left."

She nodded dimly and began to moved past him. Her yukata brushed his knees and suddenly he was catching hold of her hand to bring her to a halt. The contact startled her, and she looked down at the fingers loosely clasping hers…but she didn't shake him off.

"Are you _sure_ this is what you want?" he asked, watching her closely.

She swallowed, glancing between him and his hand. "I can't keep it," she whispered. "But I can't be _happy_ about it, if that's what you're expecting."

"Are you getting attached to it?" he asked curiously.

"No, but…" She winced as if she couldn't find the words and she rubbed the hand he'd touched without seeming to notice. "Is this what you want too?"

The question hit him from his blind spot. "What?" he blurted.

"This is your baby too," she reminded. "Don't you think it'll be weird having a child… a _son_ who you'll never see or hear from again, and know only that they may be in the rain country somewhere? And you won't ever know whether they live a long happy life and have kids of their own, or whether they catch a terrible disease not long after they're adopted and die young?"

She really_ had_ thought about this. It was visibly eating at her, and now she'd firmly sealed her lips to stop any more of her concerns spill out in a flood.

"I… hadn't really thought about that," he admitted.

"This baby doesn't actually matter to you, does it? You just want to get it out of the way, don't you?" she asked flatly. "I envy you."

"Sakura…"

"I'll be ready to leave tonight," she said abruptly, stepping away from him. "I'm sure you'll be able to find me when you want me."

Kakashi watched Sakura and her shadow disappear under the cover of trees, her gait now totally transformed by the extra weight she carried. Watching her walk away from him had once been the most enjoyable vision he'd ever been treated to, especially on the days she forwent skirts to wear tight little shorts or culottes. Her bottom was a thing of beauty when it swayed from side to side, soft and shapely, and not so firm it didn't bounce delightfully when slapped playfully – something he'd done far too often while he had the excuse of being drunk.

Now, however, he only felt sorry for her and the eight hour walk to Ame.

* * *

It felt only right to have one last check-up before a major journey, though the doctor was perhaps wishing by now that she hadn't bothered. He seemed to be one of those people who was a bit finicky about getting fingerprints on their computer screens, and Sakura wasn't helping by pointing at something on the screen every few seconds.

"Is that normal?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What about that? I've never seen that before."

"That's normal too."

"Are there supposed to be five legs?"

"Those aren't legs, and neither is that."

"Oh."

She dropped her hand and regarded the image from the ultrasound. The emerging pattern was definitely more baby-shaped than ever, but where before it had been difficult to connect the picture on the screen to the life growing inside her, now it was all too possible. When the thing on the screen kicked, she felt it.

"He does that a lot," she told the doctor. "Is that-"

"Normal? Yes," he interrupted flatly. "You'll feel punches and kicks fairly often. It means he's active, and that's good."

Not for her poor bladder. Still, she was relieved to hear everything was as normal as normal could be. She looked at the doctor. "Will I be alright to travel?" she asked carefully.

"Depends what you mean," he said, frowning in concern.

"Say… the distance between here and Amegakure. Do you think that's safe for me?" she asked.

The chronically blank-faced man wiped down his probe and began putting it away. "You'd have to take it easy," he said slowly. "I wouldn't normally advise it, but in _your _case… well, if you take regular breaks and pace yourself, you should be fine. You should have someone accompany you though."

"I have that sorted," she sighed. "Thank you."

There was not much else he could do for her but offer the name of a good doctor in Ame, and as soon as the gel was wiped off her belly he was ushering her out the door like a guest overstaying her welcome. She got the feeling that even he didn't want to get too entangled in her affairs. If anyone knew he had encouraged her to leave, he might be in trouble after she disappeared.

Looking at her watch, she noticed there were still plenty of chores to do before she could even begin packing a bag. There was the folding and the dusting, and the flower arranging and someone had to re-measure the twins because they'd grown _again_, and Sakura was the only one with the nerves to deal with them and –

And was that Karasu coming up the path towards her?

Sakura discreetly looked around, but with the lake on one side and thick forest on the other, there was no way she could take a detour to avoid him that wouldn't be totally obvious. He'd already seen her. In fact, as he drew nearer she noticed he began to smile.

Following proper servant etiquette, Sakura had to pull to the side of the path to make way for him and duck into a bow. Unfortunately, it always seemed to her that this made the people she least wanted to speak to want to stop and speak to her.

"Visiting the doctor?" he asked pleasantly, slowing down.

"Yes, Hatake-sama," she muttered. Then the thought occurred to her… because there really was only one place this path led. "Are you visiting too, sir?"

"Yes. I have a cough." And he coughed for her benefit, even though the medic in Sakura thought it sounded forced. "I'm glad to see a girl like you is taking care with her health. You'll definitely be a fit mother."

Sakura didn't like the way he looked over her. It wasn't lewd, the way Toshio looked over her as if he was thinking of doing horrible, perverted things to her body. It was more like the way someone eyed up a nice sword before they bought it. Either way, it felt inappropriate enough to leave an uneasy feeling between her shoulder blades. "Thank you, Hatake-sama," she muttered again.

He began to turn, much to her relief, before suddenly deciding to remember something. "Oh," he said, looking somewhere above her head. "I do believe Reika will be staying behind. Don't be alarmed but she has expressed a strong desire to kill you, so you may like to keep your back to the walls while I'm gone."

Sakura balked. "W… what?"

"I'm afraid you've sort of monopolised her fiancé," he said sadly. "I'm sure if he leaves you she'll be more forgiving, but like I said, watch out for her. You'll know her when you see her, of course. She'll be the one hiding behind the curtains with the knife. Haha."

And then he continued on his merry way.

Sakura stood on the path for a long time, trying to process what she'd been told. Reika, the pretty, petulant girl who she'd first seen in Jonan… was Kakashi's fiancée? One who wanted her dead? No – one whom _he _had seen in Jonan and perhaps even met up with, exactly the day before he'd slept with Sakura?

_Weren't they cousins?_

"Ew…" she whispered, shuddering to herself as she carried on.

She tried not to think about it too much as she raced through her tasks, after all she was leaving this estate tonight and then spurned lovers would matter very little once they were in Ame. But when it came time to serve the evening meal she paid special attention to the woman who had always sat next to Kakashi… and whether it was because Sakura was really looking at her for the first time, or because Karasu was absent, it seemed as if there was a rather heavy atmosphere around the platinum haired woman.

When her gaze flicked over Sakura it was cold and absolutely _vile._ Sakura had always thought it was because of the time Sakura had rolled her eyes at the woman in the mirror. Now she realised Reika begrudged her for a whole other reason – namely the one sitting next to her.

If they were betrothed, there wasn't much of a sign. They barely looked at each other, they never spoke, and the one time Kakashi did turn to her and ask if he could borrow her sauce, she seemed only to grunt and avoid his gaze.

But was that just because Sakura had got between them? Had they been lovers before? Had they slept with each other? Had they done more things together than she and Kakashi?

Reika finally seemed to notice she was being watched and fixed Sakura with a hard stare. Ever so slowly a wide smile spread across her face behind her sake cup. It wasn't friendly. Sakura had been punched with more warmth and friendliness than this smile offered. _I'm going to kill you,_ it said. _Slowly._

It was only interrupted when Kakashi handed back the sauce with a pleasant, "Thank you."

Sakura had already known that there were people in this house that wanted her dead. She was not pleased to see she had another to add to the list, but she repeated to herself that it was fine. She was leaving tonight. Kakashi had promised no harm would come to her and loathe as she was to admit she needed a bodyguard… she needed a bodyguard.

The rest of the evening was free for Sakura, and while the other girls worked, Sakura concentrated on packing. Where before she had always concentrated on packing basic, naked necessities before anything else, now Sakura found herself laying out all her best dresses to select which ones to take. Presumably Kakashi would take care of the food, water and money. She only needed to pack what few belongings she had left in this place since he'd confiscated her last bag of supplies.

But most of all, Sakura knew she had to be _presentable_ in Ame. If she would be meeting with the future parents of her child, she didn't want to turn up wearing a dirty, wrinkly yukata and smelling of sweat. She needed to look like someone respectable who _might_ have been a good mother if not for mitigating circumstances. If people looked at her and thought 'I'm not having the child of _this_ kind of woman' she just might die of humiliation.

It was bad enough that scruffy old Kakashi would be coming with her.

"Sakura-chan, what are you doing?" Kaoru asked from the doorway.

Sakura looked at her a little sadly. "I'm packing," she said.

"You're… leaving?" Kaoru looked at her blankly for a moment, not understanding, until suddenly she was running towards her. "No, no, no, you can't leave! They'll kill you!"

"Kakashi is coming with me," Sakura explained patiently.

Kaoru looked even more confused. "Why?"

"He's going to escort me and make sure I'm alright."

"No, I mean, why would he help you...?"

"He's not such a bad man once you get to know him," Sakura told her.

"Aki won't be pleased," Kaoru cautioned. "She thinks you're too close to him already, if she hears you're eloping-"

"We're not _eloping,"_ Sakura said quickly, firmly. "We're just… taking care of some stuff."

The other girl nodded, eyes narrowed. "Ah… the baby, you mean."

"Yes. The baby."

"I'll miss it," she sighed. "Who'll be my good luck charm in the morning now?"

"You'll have to find another belly to rub."

"Whose belly needs rubbing?" Aki had slipped into the room, and Kaoru immediately turned before Sakura could even open her mouth, and explained to the new girl exactly what was happening in about ten times as many words as necessary.

Aki did indeed look displeased. "I don't think it's safe to go off alone with him," she whispered.

"I don't have a choice," Sakura insisted. "If I stay, I'm dead meat. He's the only one who is able and willing to help me out of here."

"She's right," Kaoru said with a shrug.

"I'll be safe," Sakura added. "You don't know him like I do. He's trustworthy."

Aki looked even more worried. "That's what Yui says about Toshio."

Speaking of Yui… "Maybe we shouldn't tell her I'm leaving," Sakura said quietly. "She has… conflicting interests. I don't want Zuru sending people after me before I even get off the estate."

"She wouldn't want to wave and kiss you goodbye, either," Kaoru pointed out.

Yui would actually be more likely to whoop with joy and dance a jig to hear Sakura was leaving, and perhaps be only slightly disappointed that she was leaving with her life. But Sakura didn't expect her to walk in while she packed her bags. For some reason she hadn't seen a lot of Yui these days. When they did cross paths Yui never looked at her, and it occurred to Sakura that she hadn't heard the girl speak in her presence for days.

Nevertheless, Sakura was glad to finally be getting away. Yui may have become less troublesome but there was still too much danger in this place, and hell she was going to _Ame; _a place she'd been trying to reach for months in order to circumvent Kakashi's oppression. Now he finally trusted her enough (or else felt guilty enough) to take her there himself.

Ame… with its abundance of radio transmission towers, commercial messenger birds, and ramen bars.

The other two girls helped her select the most flattering clothes and accessories and told her repeatedly to wear her hair up – it made her look more mature. Sakura trusted their taste. And when everything was eventually packed up and the conversation had lapsed through several tangents until they were talking about what it would be like to paint cats, the door to the veranda rolled open.

The girls fell silent and looked towards the man standing there.

All Kakashi said was, "Sakura."

Time to go.

"I'll miss you," she whispered to Aki and Kaoru as she hugged each in turn – the latter had a hard time letting go.

"You'll write, won't you?" she asked.

"I'll try," Sakura said, ignoring Kakashi's disproving frown. Kaoru's eyes were tearing up, and Sakura had to admit hers were a little damp as well, though that was probably just her hormones. Aki was much more stoic, perhaps only because she kept glancing distrustfully towards Kakashi.

Sakura turned to him. "I'm ready," she said.

"Are you going to be warm enough?" he asked, looking her over.

"Oh, stop fussing, _mother_," she gasped impatiently, alarming the two girls behind her who wouldn't ever dream of speaking to one of the Hatake clan like that without swift and painful retribution.

Kakashi just shrugged and looked back at the girls. "Thank you for taking care of her," he told them.

Now they seemed even more alarmed.

"T-Take care of her too, please," Aki managed.

"I will."

Sakura waved one last time before following Kakashi around the edge of the servant's building to find the path that wound past the kitchens and down to the stile. The light was fading fast and Sakura could see most of this journey would be through the pitch darkness of the rainforest.

"Pretty mean animals roam around at night here, you know?" she said conversationally.

"S'ok," he shrugged. "I'll be alright as long as I have you to scare them off."

Sakura stopped dead. "You bastard…" So _that_ was how this journey was going to be, eh?

When they reached the stile and Sakura hesitated. It had finally happened. When she'd first arrived at this estate and climbed over this thing, she had wondered how many months it would be before it would stymy her, and now she was finally standing here trying to peep down at her toes and wondering if was it even physically possible to climb the thing. It wasn't a good feeling…

Sensing the problem, Kakashi hopped up the steps and landed on the other side to turn and offer his hand. Sakura scowled at him. He probably thought it was terribly gentlemanly but no gentleman looked that full of himself.

"I'm only doing this to humour you," she said, reluctantly taking his hand as she carefully climbed the stone steps and eased herself through a gap that seemed much narrower than she remembered. "I could do this by myself."

"Mm." He wisely said nothing about the way she had to catch his other hand as she stepped down again.

Now she was on her way to Amegakure. She remembered what the gardener had told her about the route. "If we follow this path, it'll come to a road that leads directly to Ame," she told Kakashi, pointing down the overgrown rut through the trees and ferns that she'd used the first time she'd attempted to leave for Ame.

"Fine," Kakashi said. "But we have to be quiet. Some of my clan will be patrolling these forests."

"I know." She'd run into them a few times already. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her, figuring out _exactly_ what she meant, and she raised her shoulders in a defensive shrug. "What do you take me for? Of course I tried to escape."

"Bear in mind, when Karasu isn't home some of them can be pretty irritating," he sighed.

"How d'you mean?"

"I'm sure we'll find out," he said heavily, beckoning her to take the lead.

They didn't talk as they walked, and Sakura tried to move quietly but some of the ground was pretty brittle and thick with plants. If she wasn't snapping old twigs, she was swishing through lilies and spider plants, and not for the first time she missed her chakra. With her chakra should could make her way down this path in utter silence like Kakashi, and she wouldn't need to walk in front of him the way you walked a prisoner or someone too weak to watch their own back.

It was no surprise that after just a few minutes, Kakashi caught her arm and drew her back towards him until she was crowded against the buttress of a giant tree. The reason was the arrival of two black haired young men standing above them on one of the same tree's giant roots.

"Well, well, we have _two_ mice sneaking away now?" one said.

"Hey, isn't that Kakashi-san?" commented the other.

"Are you leaving, Kakashi-san?" the first asked.

"Yep. Duty calls and all that," he responded lightly, though his hand was gripping Sakura's wrist a little too tightly for such a casual tone. "Didn't you two go with Karasu?"

"Nah, he wants upper house toffs mostly," one of the men said dismissively. "We were told to watch the estate… make sure no one leaves who shouldn't."

Kakashi cocked his head. "I'm sure you're doing a great job. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really should get going. Don't want to be late."

Both men laughed at this. Sakura realised Kakashi's tardy reputation was not just the amusement of his Konoha colleagues.

"Classic," chuckled one of the sentries. "But seriously though, you have to leave the girl."

Kakashi stilled. "She's coming with me."

"She's the one carrying Toshio's heir right? Nah, she's not allowed to leave," said the sentry. "And look at her, she looks like she's ready to drop it. You can't be carting girls in that condition round."

"I'm only six months," Sakura protested.

"Really?" responded the man. "You're much fatter than I'd expect."

Kakashi's hand tightened on her again to keep from going over there to thump the unwitting man. "She's coming with me," he said again. "It's not a problem."

They shrugged at him. "Karasu's orders."

"He won't miss _one_ maid," Kakashi reasoned.

The two sentries looked at one another. "No," the one on the left said. "You don't get it. Karasu's orders are that _she_ specifically can't leave."

Sakura's eyebrows knitted in confusion. What the hell did Karasu care if she came or went?

"Why's Karasu so interested in her?" Kakashi asked them.

"He wants her after you," the left sentry said. "That's all."

"Sick!" Sakura hissed. "I'm not a toy to be passed around and-"

Kakashi's fingers pressed against her lips, silencing her. "I'll bring her back then. I just need to take care of some business and I'll return her in a week or so. Is that alright? Karasu need never know."

"Why do you need her to accompany you on your business?"

Sakura pushed Kakashi's hand away. "I have my own business," she told them. "I want to visit my friend. She's sick. You probably know her – she's the head of staff who was poisoned a while ago."

They nodded. "Oh, yeah. Her. Shame."

"Kakashi-sama was kind enough to say he would accompany me," she went on. "I don't plan to go anywhere. I don't have anywhere else to go anyway. But _please_ let me see my friend."

They looked reluctant, but mainly apathetic. "I guess… if Kakashi-san's with her, she'll be alright," one said.

"Alright," said the other, "but no telling Karasu we let you off."

"Thank you," Kakashi said curtly, pulling on Sakura's wrist. "Come on."

They didn't speak again until they were far away from the giant tree and the road with the streetlights was in sight. Only then did Kakashi release her arm and slow down.

"You're a swift liar," he said to her, shaking some sausage sized caterpillars off his cloak.

"You're not so bad yourself," she returned, unable to keep the cynical edge from her voice. He was the king of liars after all, lying to his village for years while posing as the worst liar in creation with all his late excuses.

"Touché," he muttered, looking down the road they'd found themselves on. Streetlights dotted its length and from their vantage point on this hillside the road stretched on, turning into an orange snake that meandered between distant hills and lowland.

Sakura felt tired just looking at it.

"It's eight hours from here to Ame," Kakashi said. "If you feel tired, we'll stop. If you get pains, tell me and I'll carry you."

She laughed. "I'd like to see you try."

He smiled in response and flicked his head to shift his bangs out of his eye. His hair was really getting a bit too long these days. She'd have to remind him to see a barber once they got to Ame. "Shall we go?" he asked.

Sakura started walking.

* * *

Next chapter: _Amegakure_


	31. Amegakure

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty: Amegakure

* * *

_Didn't know where I was going till you got in my way,_

_Thank God for these mistakes._

* * *

Something about Amegakure left Sakura uneasy.

Perhaps it was the greeting they got when they arrived at the entrance. Fifteen masked man who had to be the Ame equivalent of Konoha's ANBU stood around holding people up. Sakura and Kakashi were stopped and asked a series of probing, tedious questions ranging from the purpose of their visit to the names of their parents. Both faked the best rain country accent they could and lied by more or less telling the truth… that they were from an estate a little to the south and had come to Ame to give birth.

Sakura's rather obvious baby bump had more or less validated their story, and they were finally allowed through roughly _two_ hours after first being stopped. Yet still Sakura felt uneasy.

Perhaps instead it was the fact that whole village seemed to be built on top of a giant lake. Like an oil rig, she could see huge metal trunks disappearing into deep water, holding up an endless platform that was connected to land only by a narrow metal bridge. As Sakura crossed it, she tried not to imagine that it was groaning under her feet, ready to snap and splinter and drag everyone and everything into the lake. Ame had been standing for fifty years. That had to mean something for the quality of its engineering.

But maybe what made Sakura uneasy were the enormous, looming skyscrapers that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Everything was metal and concrete here. The streets were nothing more than strips of metal grating through which it was easy to see the water lapping at the rusting supports below. Yet that was just on the bottom tier.

And perhaps that was the other thing that made Sakura uneasy. Ame was a village divided into three. The bottom level was the closest to the water, where the buildings were dilapidated and practically deserted. It was quiet too, when the predominate sound was just the sighing of the lake and the deep hum and grind of invisible machinery carried through the bundles of pipes that spread everywhere like the intestines of the village. The predominate smell was a near overpowering stench of ammonia that even Kakashi complained about.

The middle tier was the busiest, built directly over the iron ceiling of the lowest tier. This was where the poorer residents seemed to live, and there were a lot of them. Unlike Konoha where poverty was unheard of, this was a level filled with people who seemed to live on the street-like walkways. Every corner had a beggar, and every time one asked Sakura for spare change, she in turn harassed Kakashi until he produced something from one of his pockets.

She wondered if this was the tier they would be stopping at, but Kakashi ushered her on to the next set of great elevators to pay a toll and take them up another level.

At least on the top tier she could see the sky once more, even if it was nothing more than a tiny, white shape high above her head. This was the level of the skyscrapers. The people up here didn't look much better off than the ones below, but at least there were no homeless beggars to make her feel guilty.

Up there it was _almost_ like Konoha with its drifting avenues of shops and businesses. However, here the people did not have little houses and gardens like they did back home; instead they lived in the high-rise apartment buildings. This wasn't a city that could build outwards, rather it had chosen to build _up._

Sakura didn't mind. As long as she found a bed _soon_ that was all she needed to be content. "Where are we going?" she asked Kakashi. They were bumping their way down a crowded street that was just like every other street they'd bumped their way down. "I should warn you, I plan to collapse soon…"

"Just a little further. There's a hotel over there."

"Is it nice?" she asked with trepidation.

"It's about as good as we can afford."

"Good enough. Lead the way."

She didn't ask how he already knew his way around this village so well, or how he'd pinpointed the exact hotel that was optimum for their budget. She trusted him. Mainly because she was now so tired and overwhelmed that she could barely keep her eyes open as she walked. It was only her grip on his sleeve that let her keep up with him.

If the hotel lobby was pleasant or cleanly, she didn't notice. All she remembered was Kakashi haggling with a woman behind the desk and then they were in another elevator that seemed to go up and up forever. Sakura's ears popped at least twice. By the time the doors finally opened on their floor, Sakura could hardly move and it was up to Kakashi to scoop her into his arms and carry her the rest of the way. She must have fallen asleep before he ever set her down, as she didn't recall how she'd arrived in the bed she now woke up in.

For the most part it was a nice bed. Not as comfortable as the one she'd been sleeping in at the estate – Kakashi's bed to be more accurate – but it smelt clean and crisp and for the first time she dozily appreciated cool linen on her skin. This room had air conditioning.

Sakura rose with a sleepy sigh to peer around at her unfamiliar surroundings. It was roughly the same size as her room in the servant's dorm, only much more modern in its design and amenities. There was a TV hanging on the wall over there, a length of mirrored wardrobes running across the wall to her left and a long window to her right, complete with an overstuffed window seat. Upon this seat snored a little pug.

It was the view outside that window which caught Sakura's interest first. Her eyes widened and she slipped off the bed for a closer look, but the moment she realised just how high this apartment was, she almost felt a rush of vertigo. The ground was too far down to see between the narrow gaps of the buildings. She could see people in those other buildings, and on bridges and walkways that linked something to something else and Sakura wondered if there were people living in this village who ever set foot on the ground.

"No creature without wings was ever meant to be this high ," Pakkun grumbled tiredly. "I wouldn't look if I were you."

She sank down onto the seat beside him, hand curved over her belly. "Where's Kakashi?" she asked him.

"Out," he replied.

"Out where?"

"Doing stuff," Pakkun sat up with a yawn and a shake. "He said you're not to go anywhere until he gets back."

"Uh-huh." As if Sakura was obliged to obey him. Now she definitely _had_ to poke her nose about just to spite him and teach him a lesson.

"Where are you going?" Pakkun asked reproachfully as she stood and made her way to the door which seemed to be the most likely exit.

"I'm just going to investigate." Yep. Investigate and document all her avenues of escape and points of possible contact with the outside world – ie, Konoha.

Pakkun hopped down to scurry after her. "Kakashi won't be happy."

"That's a shame, because we both know I live only to make Kakashi happy," Sakura said distractedly. She reached for the handle –

It turned before she even touched it, forcing her to step back sharply to avoid being smacked in the nose by an opening door. Kakashi looked back at her impassively, a white paper bag under his arm. She wondered if he realised he'd caught her in the act of trying to sneak away.

He held the bag out to her. "I got you something to eat."

"Is that where you went?" she asked, opening the bag to peep inside curiously. All her favourites were there – oranges, spiced bean bread, and a variety of sweet treats – all things Kakashi hated.

"That," he said, walking round her to shrug his cloak off onto the bed, "and I went to check out the adoption agencies."

The man didn't waste much time. "Already?" she asked, not sure if she was supposed to be pleased at his swift handling or just pissed off. Her tone suggested she could go either way.

"There's only one, apparently, they handle everything in the village," he said settling down to lie back on the bed she'd only just vacated. "They only deal with citizens of Ame, so I said I'd get back to them with some ID. I had to pinch someone else's on the way back, but I'll be able to mock up some nice forgeries for tomorrow. If anyone asks, you were born here."

"I was born here," Sakura repeated.

"Exactly. But she said there are about fifteen couples or so on an approved waiting list who are looking for a new baby. Some of them are willing to pay money-"

"I don't want money," she said quickly, feeling cold at the thought.

He gave her a frank look. "You could do with the money," he pointed out.

Rattled, she shot him a glare. "It's bad enough my house got put up for auction, but my baby too?"

He shrugged. "I don't like the idea myself, but if you're giving it away anyway, you might as well make the most of the situation."

"That's too cold. Even for you," she said quietly.

"Relax," he shrugged. "I already told them that wasn't important."

Sakura scowled again. There it was again. He'd already whizzed off ahead of her, making arrangements without asking her – granted he was only doing what she would have done, but it was the principle. "I don't like that," she said aloud, reaching down compulsively to pick up the cloak he'd dropped. "I don't like you organising things for me."

"I'm only trying to help you."

"I know – and I don't mind that, but if you're here to help me then _help_ me. Stop trying to control me." She flapped the cloak and went to the wardrobe.

He sat up on the bed, looking at her peculiarly. "While you're busy trying to fix _my_ irritating habits, how about fixing some of yours."

"What?" she swung to pin him with another glare.

"You. You're always tidying up," he complained. "You're not a maid here so stop it. If I drop the damn cloak on the bed, leave it. You're not my wife."

"And don't you be giving me orders about where I can or can't go!" she snapped. "Even if you _were_ my husband, you'd have no right!"

He frowned and lay back. "Well I'm glad we figured out we're _not _in fact married."

Sakura deliberately tossed the cloak over him. "How about you go back to your own room and give me some peace?" she asked pointedly.

"This is my room," he replied flatly.

"Then where is my room?"

"This is also your room."

Sakura's jaw jerked to the side. "I _can_ make you eat your own testicles, you know."

"What's the big deal?" He looked genuinely confused. "We've slept together before."

And, boy, had they slept together before. "Because you were scared of the dark and I felt sorry for you," she said, valiantly ignoring how hot her cheeks suddenly felt. "And we both know how that turned out!"

"I wasn't scared of the dark – I was being haunted."

"You deserved it! But I don't see no ghosts around here, so you can toddle back downstairs right this minute and book yourself your own separate room."

He shook his head with the attitude of someone who had already decided long ago. "No," he said. "I'm not leaving you on your own."

"Don't you trust me?" she asked, contriving to seem hurt and offended.

"It's not about trust, it's about your safety," he said glibly. "You're heavily pregnant, you can't defend yourself, and I'm sleeping in the same room as you whether you like it or not. Don't worry, I'll take the couch. Again."

Sakura looked at the window seat he was pointing at, but in her opinion is was far too narrow for a man of his frame. Still, if he wanted to give himself a bad back and a stiff neck, Sakura was only too happy for him. It was his fault for not ordering a separate room.

She primly perched herself on the same seat and began to steadily consume the bean buns he'd bought for her. Pakkun oozed up to her, silently beseeching her with his eyes to share in a way that perhaps only Kakashi and his biased opinions found cute. Nevertheless she shared a few chunks of bread with him and they both quietly agreed it had nothing on cat flavoured biscuits.

"You'll make him fat," Kakashi warned from behind his Icha Icha book.

"Fat loves company," she retorted, patting her round belly. The baby kicked back in response.

Kakashi, always perceptive, immediately noticed the strange expression on her face. "What is it?"

But with _him,_ Sakura didn't feel like sharing. This baby was her own business and he'd made it clear that he wasn't particularly interested in it beyond its monetary worth. All the baby's tiny little kicks and bumps that would normally enthral mother and father alike were significant only to herself. "Nothing," she said, shrugging as she went back to her food.

There wasn't much to do around the one room apartment. The TV featured about twenty five channels of undiluted excrement, and the only board games in the cupboards were missing all their important pieces. "There's nothing to _do_ here!" she gasped in annoyance as she threw back a pack of cards that was missing all four aces. "Let's go out."

Kakashi looked at her over the top of his book. "Where do you want to go?" he asked, offering surprisingly little resistance.

Sakura thought for a moment. "Let's go shopping."

Now she saw a hint of _oh, crap_ about his expression. "Shopping?" he repeated dully.

"And then we can go eat."

"You already ate."

"What about you?" she pointed out. "After all the shopping we do, you'll be famished."

"That sounds extremely ominous," he sighed, but he was already standing. "Fine. But don't push yourself."

"I'm not an invalid," she reminded him sharply as she tugged on her shoes.

Pakkun blew out a wobbly sigh. "I'll stay here if you don't mind. Don't like heights."

"What does that mean?" Sakura asked.

The dog lifted his wrinkly brow. "You'll see."

She did see. After taking the elevator down about ten floors, Kakashi showed her to an exit that led onto a covered bridge between their apartment building and the next. Sakura looked down through the grating to see the ground far below, quietly in awe of how far up they were, but when she looked back at Kakashi she noticed he was looking at the sky.

"Scared of heights?" she guessed, grabbing the rail to see if the bridge was at all wobbly.

It was.

"_Don't_ _do that_," Kakashi ground out, walking a little faster to reach the other side. "And I'm not scared, I'm just concerned."

"What a feckless bastard you are, abandoning a poor pregnant girl on a rickety bridge," she told him tartly, rocking and wobbling her way over to him.

"I'm certain you could bully even a bridge into mending itself if it broke under you," he replied.

"Is that likely to happen?" she asked, suddenly concerned herself. "Wait, are you saying I'm fat enough to break a bridge?"

He avoided the question by pointing to the doors ahead of them. "Shopping is this way."

It was an indoor, multi-story mall. Perfect. A little retail therapy after all she'd been through was just what she needed, and she perused the clothing shops with about as much enthusiasm as Kakashi lacked. She was sick to death of the yukata and obi she'd been forced to wear day in and day out at the estate. Here there were lightweight dresses and shirts and skirts and even pants with elastic waistbands. Sakura spent as much as she dared with the money she'd earned from four months of working under the Zuru family. For all their faults, they paid well at least.

Kakashi waited outside at each shop, and every time she returned with another bag he looked on in despair. "Are we done yet?" he asked, as if she was subjecting him to a dull kind of torture.

Sakura ignored him. "I want to go to the hobby shop. I need to find _something_ to do to keep me from being too bored in this place."

"Am I not good enough company?"

He was asking for it. "No," she replied bluntly, before she disappeared into the recesses of another arts and craft shop. She took her time selecting something to keep her entertained, mainly just to annoy the man waiting outside for her. When she finally made a decision, she had to depart with the last of her money, but she was pleased with her purchase.

As she came to the doors again she noticed Kakashi standing against the wall outside, cigarette in mouth. Anxiety, she thought to herself. She hated that he still hadn't kicked the habit, but as always when she approached him he dutifully ground the cigarette into the ground. "What did you buy?" he asked her pleasantly, tugging up his mask again.

She pulled two ten-inch needles from her bag.

Without a change in expression, Kakashi froze. "Oh, dear god."

Used in just the right way they might be shoved through a man's eye to penetrate his brain. Used another way, they could make some rather fetching woolly sweaters. "They're knitting needles," she explained, clacking them together cheerfully, if not a littler threateningly. "I'm going to knit."

"How maternal," he said dryly.

"This has nothing to do with maternity. I've always knitted."

"I thought you stopped. Wasn't poetry your new Thing?" he wondered. "Is that your old Thing now?"

Sakura still would never admit she changed hobbies as fast as her underwear. "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied stolidly. "Shouldn't we go eat now? I'm starving."

It was weirder than she'd anticipated, going to a restaurant with Kakashi. She felt uneasy as a waitress showed them to an intimate little two-seater table in a booth and addressed them as 'sir' and 'madam' with a knowing sort of look. It was worse still when the same waitress congratulated them both on Sakura's stomach (as if getting pregnant was some difficult kind of feat that required huge talent to accomplish, which Sakura would have to strongly protest) and then asked when it was due. Sakura opened her mouth but nothing came out. She felt pinned.

And it wasn't made any better when Kakashi, in no mood to act the proud father, succinctly told the girl to shut up and fetch the menus.

"What?" he asked, when he noticed Sakura's frigid glare.

When the waitress returned, she was much cooler towards them. "Ready to order?" she asked primly.

"I'll have the tempura special, please," Sakura said quietly.

"Miso," Kakashi added.

The waitress made a note. "Anything to drink?" she asked. "The wine list is on the back.

"Beer," Kakashi grunted, dropping his chin into his palm.

Sakura sighed. "I can't drink… I guess I'll have the lemonade."

Kakashi's hand dropped. "Make that two lemonades. No beer."

As the waitress huffed and left once more, Sakura leant over her place setting. "You didn't have to be so rude."

"She was being nosy," he retorted.

"She was being normal. Most people are supposed to be happy when they're expecting a baby. And you don't have to drink the same as me. We're not _both _pregnant."

"It's not fair on you though," he said with a shrug. "It's bad enough you're the one suffering all the aches and pains, but if you can't drink, then I won't either. It's not much, but I don't want you to think you're alone in this."

"Swallow a basketball, then we'll talk about equal suffering," she said dismissively, mostly to hide how much he'd surprised her. He probably wanted to make her think well of him for choosing to abstain from the things she couldn't enjoy, but Sakura wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He could be teetotal if he wanted, but she wouldn't show him she _cared _for goodness sake.

That awkward feeling of forced intimacy faded when the food arrived. Sakura was too busy stuffing her face to worry about where she was and who she was with. When she looked up at Kakashi she noticed he was staring at her in a sort of horrified fascination. Now it was her turn to blurt a defensive, "What?"

He pointed to his cheek. Sakura reached up and wiped the bread crumbs off her face solemnly, not particularly minding what he thought of her table manners. He'd known they were bad long before he'd ever slept with her. "The food's nice here, at least," she said. "Any place with good food can't be a bad place for a kid to grow up."

He shrugged. "I suppose that's one way to look at it."

"There were a lot of homeless people though," she sighed, "down in the lower levels."

"It's a big town. It borders on three major power who are constantly fighting, so a lot of displaced people come here," Kakashi told her. "But the baby will go to family with a home, so it's not a problem. "

Sakura filled her mouth with food again and continued to chew as she thought. There had to be hundreds of thousands of people living in this village, most of them civilians. There was every chance that the couple who adopted the baby would be civilians themselves. Selfishly, Sakura hoped they would be. The adopted child of civilians would be less likely to grow up and join the dangerous ninja profession and then he might live a long, quiet life as just one of many in this big, sprawling village.

But what if he did join up with the shinobi force? It was in his blood, after all. What if he became an Ame nin? What if, in twenty years, Sakura came to be fighting on the opposite of her own son?

The thought left her with an unpleasant feeling in her chest. Yet it seemed unavoidable. In this world where countries were always at war with one another, no matter where she left her child there would always be the possibility of future conflict. The only way to avoid that would be to adopt within Konoha itself… and Sakura didn't think she could live there knowing any little boy she passed in the street could be her own.

"What's the matter?" Kakashi asked.

She realised she'd stopped eating, and she blinked up at him. "I feel scared," she admitted in a whisper. "What if he doesn't have a good life here?"

Kakashi's eyes narrowed slightly, like he was recalculating her. "We'll make sure we find the right people," he told her steadily. "No one but the best will do for us."

She nodded, but she didn't feel all that reassured. Like with all her worries, she had to push it to the back of her mind, force a smile and then stuff her mouth with food again. Kakashi's smile caught her eye, however. Her favourite one; the faint, tentative one as if he was smiling more to himself. Thinking it was her table manners again, Sakura tried to eat more daintily. His smile only widened.

_Oh, hell_, she thought, fighting back against the fluttering feeling beneath her ribs. This was the last thing she needed.

* * *

Kakashi stifled a yawn with the back of his hand as he finished his work. Beneath the lamp light he now had two perfect copies of a standard rain country ID, one with his picture, and one with Sakura's, both snipped from the last Team Kakashi photo a few years ago that he always carried with him. Some might call it excessively sentimental to carry a picture of his team wherever he went, but Kakashi knew that one day he might be taken out by a younger, faster enemy, and when that happened he wanted to be able to reach into his pocket and make sure the last thing he saw were the faces of his team. His family. The process of cutting out the faces had destroyed Naruto's and now all that was left of the photo was Sai. Kakashi realised he had better not die any time soon. He was _not_ going to the grave with just that pasty faced sociopath to send him off.

He switched off the lamp and turned in the desk chair to regard the bed behind him. Underneath the lumpy covers lay Sakura, surrounded by pillows. But judging by her restless shifting, she was still struggling to get comfortable.

In the darkness he crossed to sit on the window seat and turned to gaze out the window. Even though it was night the view was lit with a multitude of lights, coloured and bright and crude. He sighed. They seemed so very far from home these days, despite what their new ID cards read.

"Could you close the blinds?" Sakura croaked. "It's too bright."

He obliged her before turning back to face her. "Can't sleep?" he asked her.

"Your bed was comfier," she sighed.

"I can get you another pillow if you like," he offered. He'd break into another room if he had too.

"No…" she said uncertainly, as if she wasn't sure what she needed. "It's not that really, it's just…" She laid a hand on her belly.

"Just what?"

"This thing's uncomfortable is all. I'll be glad when it's born."

So she was back to calling the baby a 'thing' and an 'it'? Kakashi smiled lightly through the darkness, knowing her bravado was wearing thinner these days. Had she even noticed that she'd switched to a male pronoun back in the restaurant when talking about the baby? She'd never done that in his presence before, and as much as she could try to pretend she didn't care, he knew she already did.

He just wished she didn't feel the need to hide it from him.

"Don't worry about the adoption, Sakura," he told her. "Everything will be ok. You'll see."

She rolled away from him. "Stop trying to be nice. It doesn't suit you."

Fair enough. He shrugged his shoulders and lay down along the narrow window seat. It was a good thing he knew he didn't move in his sleep or else he'd wake up on the floor come morning. He had slept on worse things though, so he didn't begrudge Sakura the bed too much. Instead he closed his eyes and forced his body to relax, ready to sleep at last after a long, difficult day.

Sakura's loud and extremely annoyed growl made his eyes pop open again a few minutes later.

"What is it?" he rasped.

Sakura lay twisted in a cacoon of her own making. "I need another pillow," she said sulkily.

He smiled and reached down to pull the lock picking kit from his bag. "I'll be back in a bit."

* * *

Sakura was faintly relieved that Kakashi had decided to wait for her before heading to the adoption agency the next morning. He could probably make the journey faster without her, but perhaps now he recognised that this was important to her.

"It isn't a big deal," he told her as they made their way across the network of bridges and suspended paths. "They'll just set us up with some names, that's all."

"And I want to be there," she said firmly.

"If that's what you want," he sighed loftily.

The adoption agency was less impressive than she'd imagined. It was just an office in a block of other offices, run by what seemed like three women. "You again," said the woman at reception when Kakashi walked in the door behind Sakura. "Ah, this is Sakura?"

"Hello," said Sakura.

"Your friend has told us all about you, my dear. Why don't you come on through?"

Sakura looked briefly at Kakashi with a raised eyebrow. _Friend_? Had he neglected to mention this was just as much his child as it was hers? Well, if that's how he wanted to play it… Sakura shrugged and followed the woman into another room of the office where a more senior woman was waiting.

"Ah, yes," she said, adjusting her glasses as she greeted them. "Did you bring your ID this time?"

Kakashi handed over his perfect copy and Sakura flashed hers. The agent nodded and muttered something like 'that's all in order' before turning to a wedge of files on her desk. "Now, before we continue I must be sure that you understand what you're signing onto. If you give your child away, you may not contact have any further contact with it or its adoptive parents until the child is at least the age of sixteen and instigates contact first."

Sixteen years? Even if a teenage boy did feel like meeting his real mother, she doubted that would even be possible. These ID cards were fake and this agency would never be able to track them down once they left Ame.

She was faced with the reality that she would never see this child again once she handed it over. Looking at Kakashi provided little help. He was staring at the corner of the woman's desk with a carefully expressionless expression. Sakura turned back to the agent with a hard swallow. "I understand," she said, nodding jerkily. "I won't see him again."

Out the corner of her eye, she saw Kakashi glance at her.

"Ah, it's a boy?" the woman said, delighted. "Oh good, boys are very easy to adopt. Most people who come here specifically ask for boys."

"Ame's marriage traditions," Kakashi told Sakura, noticing her affronted look. "Boys carry on the family name and continue their parent's business; girls leave home and become someone else's family when they marry."

"That's rubbish," she said, scowling.

"That's how it is," Kakashi responded.

The agent coughed and moved on. "We have fourteen couples at the moment looking to adopt, and one single woman," she said. "We can arrange meets between you and prospective parents as early as tomorrow, and if you find a match we can go from there."

Tomorrow? Sakura glanced at her hands. That was very soon. Once she met the future parents of this baby, did it become less hers and more theirs, even before it was born?

"Is that alright?" the woman asked her.

When Sakura didn't answer, Kakashi leant forward. "Tomorrow is fine," he said. "Any time in the afternoon. Here's the address of the hotel we're staying at and the room number so you can contact us…"

Sakura didn't really focus on what else was said through the rest of that meeting. She was only aware that Kakashi was doing it again – taking over and organising everything for her when she should have been taking charge of her own situation by herself. In this case, however, she was partly glad. She didn't feel she could talk to this woman in anything more than terse, monosyllabic answers.

When they said goodbye and walked back through the waiting room, there was another girl sitting there with a magazine on her lap. She was perhaps only seventeen but still heavily pregnant, and she looked as insecure and weary as Sakura felt inside. Kakashi's hand on her elbow was the only thing keeping her walking in a straight line.

Once out on the street he tilted his head to look at her. "Are you alright?"

"I want to go home," she said flatly. She meant to Konoha, of course. She wanted to go back to her old house and her own bed, and walk once again on her own streets where her old friends lived.

Kakashi took her to mean their rented hotel room. "Alright," he said softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Come on."

The weight of his hand near her neck was a constant burning presence the whole way, but she almost didn't mind. His warm hand and warm body reminded her that she wasn't alone here, and for all his many… _many_ faults, he had the power to make her feel a little better.

But she frittered away the rest of the day with her knitting needles and a bundle of wool. Each time she complained she was hungry she left Kakashi exasperated when she failed to articulate exactly what she wanted to eat. In the end he hauled her out to the same restaurant as the previous night and once again she had to bear another awkward meal sitting across from him and wondered what on earth he was supposed to be to her. A friend? A lover? A jailer?

How could he be so calm about everything? How could he just sit there sucking his teeth and staring off into space like the only thing he had to worry about was oral hygiene.

The answer was obvious. This baby didn't mean as much to him as it meant to Sakura. He wasn't the one carrying it and slowly realising it was not just a bump in her belly, but a living thing that she would be part of, forever, even after some other woman claimed it. He'd done what, contribute one tiny little cell six months ago? She was the one who had nurtured it, and would continue nurturing it until it was born, and it was never so obvious to Sakura that as much as Kakashi abstained from beer in a pithy attempt to share her burden, he would never be as affected by this as she was.

She shouldn't have been surprised. Kakashi had never been that fond of children, and she didn't think she'd seen any paternal qualities in him at any point, _ever_.

So for the first time in a long time she didn't eat well, and for the second time in two nights she didn't sleep well, even with four pillows heaped around her. She kept looking across at the window seat where Kakashi was snoring softly in what had to be a very uncomfortable sleeping position. Why did she keep having the urge to reach over and shake him awake and demand to know if he was even remotely anxious about meeting the adoptive parents tomorrow? She already knew how he'd respond. In true Kakashi style he would just shrug and grunt and yawn and go back to sleep, though not necessarily all in that order.

Sakura pulled one of her pillows over her head and tried to get to the same place he was.

* * *

The delicious smell of breakfast woke her the next morning. Sakura's hand was snaking out of bed faster than her eyes could open, searching out the source of that wonderful, freshly baked smell that promised such tasty sweetness.

Kakashi slapped her hand down. "You have to sit up properly."

She swore at him, but rose up with a bleary groan, feeling fat and untidy and not nearly as awake as Kakashi looked. On the bedside table sat a tray of breakfast pastries, compliments of the hotel's kitchen. Sakura immediately stuffed one in her mouth, glowering up at the man standing by the window for his indecency to be a slightly better morning person than her.

"What's that?" she asked, noticing a slip of paper in his hand.

He passed it to her. "A message from the agency. There's a couple that want to meet us this afternoon at that café."

The thought filled Sakura's heart with no joy whatsoever. She dropped the note on the bed and sucked the crumbs off her fingers. "I'll go have a shower then," she said dully, ignoring the way Kakashi watched her as she waddled off to the bathroom door, dragging off the sheets and pillows in her wake.

Under the blast of the showerhead, the baby seemed to move much more frequently. Could he hear the sound of the running water? Could he feel it through her skin? Did he enjoy it or was is scaring him?

Sakura let out a shaky sigh and quickly rinsed the shampoo from her hair before snapping off the water. She groped blindly for the largest towel on the rail, planning to wrap it around her before returning to the room to fetch some of her new clothes… only, try as she might, the towel would not wrap all the way round her.

"Kakashi!" she shouted. "You used the big towel!"

"I'm bigger than you," he shouted back.

That's what _he_ thought.

Sakura slapped her way across the wet tiles to jerk open the door an inch. "Could you fetch me my dress? The new one with the yellow flowers?" she asked tersely, hiding behind the door so he wouldn't be able to glimpse her.

She heard him rooting around in the drawers for a moment before the white and yellow bundle of cloth poked through the gap in the door. Sakura took it and rapidly shut the door. When she remembered this wouldn't quite be enough she jerked it open again. "Could you…" she began, her face flaming. "Could you also fetch me my panties?"

"Which ones?" he asked. "The white ones with the red edges, the black ones with the spots, the yellow ones with the green, or the granny-

"_Any,"_ she snapped. As if he thought she needed to coordinate her outfit down to her underclothes. But she didn't really want him to go rummaging around her underwear drawer, and not just because she was self-conscious about her underwear. There were other things in there too she didn't want him to see…

A hand holding her rather comfortable granny-style pair appeared through the gap, dangling them with a provocative flicking motion. He was just _asking_ for her to slam the door on his arm. Snatching them, she took a deep breath and said, "And could you-"

An equally comfy looking bra appeared before she could even finish asking. "Thank you," she muttered, trying to close the door.

His hand caught the edge, stopping her. "Do you need help dressing?"

Now she really did slam the door, and it was only his shinobi reflexes that saved his fingers from falling to the wet tiles. Was he trying to cheer her up or something? It would serve him right if she _did_ ask for him to help her dress. If he saw her naked he might just keel over in horror when he realised her body was far from the one that had tempted him so easily all those months ago.

Hair pinned and dried and with some rudimentary make-up on, Sakura finally emerged from the bathroom. Kakashi was sat on the bed, playing some kind of paw tapping game with Pakkun and when he looked up his eyebrow lifted just a fraction. It was only this that gave away his surprise. Whether he liked what he saw or whether he thought she should go back in the bathroom to try again, she couldn't guess. All he said was, "You took your time. I thought I'd have to come in and rescue you in a few minutes."

"Har har," Sakura grumbled, which was perhaps the least witty response she could think off. She just couldn't be bothered putting much more effort into retorts when her fingers were already trembling. "Are you going like that?"

He looked down at himself. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" he asked, confused.

Decked out in arm guards, shuriken holsters and a ninjato strapped to his back, there was only one way to answer that. "You look like an elite ninja."

"Well, I _am_ an-"

"Is that the impression you want to give?" she interrupted. "At least take off your mask. They're going to scrutinising the hell out of me, so there's no way _you _get to hide behind a mask."

"I'm not going out unarmed," he told her.

"Sure, but you don't have to look so… obvious."

He sighed and rose to his feet to begin stripping his equipment. Off came the arm guards, down went the mask as if it was merely a turtle neck, and the only weapons he didn't remove were the ones hidden beneath his clothes. Finally he removed the markless band from around his head, dropping it onto the pile with the rest of the discarded items on the bed. "Better?" he asked.

Much, actually. Now he looked like a vaguely normal man, even if his scar and sealed eye hinted at a life less ordinary than most. "Try and smile a bit more," she recommended.

His expression remained as devoid of joy as hers. "What difference will that make?"

The only difference was that when he smiled his good looks would be enough to have most women scrambling over each other to have his babies, which was, she supposed, exactly what she was aiming for her. "Look, we both have to do our best to present well," she said. "These people will want to think we're cute, happy people so that they know the baby will be a cute, happy baby."

"What if it's not cute?" he wondered. "Or happy? It could be a miserable, ugly baby for all we know."

Sakura took a sharp intake of breath, steadying a hand over her belly. "Take that back! No baby of mine will ever be ugly." She quirked her jaw. "Well. As long as it takes after _me_, I mean."

"Charming," he said, and his mouth widened in a fetching smile.

But it was too late for that. Sakura was already having his baby.

The designated meeting place was at a café halfway across the village, just about far enough that by the time Sakura arrived her feet and back were killing her. She seriously wondered if it might have just been easier to jump out the hotel window and paraglide to their destination for all the good walking did her these days. And when she sat down on one of the café's padded sofas she found to her dismay that the coffee she'd ordered tasted as wrong as wine did on her new taste buds. Kakashi patted her head sympathetically and went to fetch her an orange juice instead.

When he returned he slouched down on the sofa next to her, almost filling it entirely as she took nervous sips of her juice. She kept peering around anxiously and jumping every time someone entered the café, especially if it was a couple.

"What do you think they'll look like," she asked Kakashi.

He shrugged, eyes on the table. To the casual observer he might not have looked nervous, but she could see his foot tapping a little too rapidly in the air, something she'd only ever seem him do in the waiting room of the veterinarian's surgery.

Sakura frowned. "Are you…?"

"Am I what?" he asked, meeting her gaze.

She was wondering how to phrase it better when the bell on the café door tinkled again and her eyes shot towards it automatically. A woman had entered with a man, and both were looking around in a manner that suggested they weren't there for the coffee.

Immediately Sakura's insides tightened. Sure enough when the woman chanced to look over at Sakura, she tapped her husband's arm and started walking towards them. Kakashi followed her gaze and as he stood he muttered to her under his breath. "Smile." But he didn't seem capable of taking his own advice.

"Are you Sakura?" the woman asked. When Sakura nodded mutely, she gestured to herself. "I'm Bichiko, and this is my husband. You're… not what I expected…"

On the other hand, Mrs Bichiko was exactly what Sakura had expected – a woman some ten or more years older than herself, with dark curly hair framing her face, conservative clothes, and a slightly balding husband. If Sakura hadn't known better, she would have thought she was already a mother.

"What did you expect?" Sakura inquired politely as the couple took up residence on the seats across the table.

"Well, we've met with some other young mothers before, though it didn't work out. They're usually all so young and desperate looking," Bichiko said, hands clasped anxiously. "Forgive me, but your hair… is that hereditary?"

Sakura touched one of her bangs. "Yes," she answered guardedly.

"Hm." Bichiko sealed her lips and looked thoughtful, like a mother who disapproved.

"Maybe you could tell us about yourself?" Kakashi cut in. "Which level are you?"

"Level three, of course," answered the woman, and it took Sakura several moments to realise they were talking about levels of the city. Sakura hoped 'level three' was the topmost level, as opposed to the lowest where all the bad smells and gangs hung out. "Uh, my husband has a very secure job as an accountant. He does the accounts of the accountants of the our leaders."

The man smiled faintly at the brief mention. Sakura noticed he hadn't opened his mouth yet.

"I own a cake shop further in town, but I have a lot of time on my hands. We would have had children years ago, only…" She let in the insinuation hang, but Sakura didn't quite know what the problem was. Whatever the reason, this couple couldn't have children, and now their only hope lay in adoption.

Sakura swallowed hard. "You own a cake shop?" If she gave this woman her child it would be as round as a barrel by the time it was ten, particularly if it had inherited Sakura's sweet tooth.

"Do you… work?" Bichiko asked hesitantly, perhaps not expecting a positive answer. "Are you at school?"

"I work," Sakura said quickly. "Um… not right now, but I did a number of things. Mostly I worked on commission, but I spent a lot of time in hospital. I dealt in drugs."

"Drugs?" the woman deadpanned.

"Oh, yes," Sakura nodded. "I love drugs."

Kakashi coughed, his hand hitting the back of the sofa behind Sakura's head. "_Medicinal_ drugs," he grunted. "Sakura's a medical expert."

Bichiko's concerned expression melted seamlessly into awe. "A medic?" she asked, blinking at Sakura. "You're a doctor?"

"Of sorts." Sakura nodded self-consciously.

"But that must be a very stable job," the woman pointed out. "Why are you giving it up for adoption?"

"It's more reasons than just money," Sakura said quietly, sneaking a glance at Kakashi who was pretty much mirroring the bored, disinterested look from Bichiko's husband. "Would you like to know the family history?"

"Please."

"Well, luckily everyone in my family has made old bones," Sakura told her, pleased to be getting away from discussing her reasons. "Except my mother. She died of a blood disease a few years ago, but its not hereditary. My father died before I was born, but he was a ninja, which was also the main cause of death for most of his side. Oh, and I have a few cousins with severe paranoid schizophrenia, but I don't think it's on my side of the family."

"Might explain a few things though," Kakashi muttered. Sakura discreetly jabbed her elbow into the most sensitive point in his thigh.

"What about the father?" Bichiko asked, looking hesitantly at Kakashi. "You _are_ the father, aren't you?"

"No, madam, I'm not."

Sakura looked at him sharply, but he remained impassive. In four words he'd abdicated all responsibility at this meeting and now the identity of this baby's father was all up to Sakura. She couldn't very well pick a fight with him over it – not here, not in front of these people. Her only choice was to turn back to Bichiko and her husband and stammer for a hasty explanation. "Th-The father? Well… he's just a guy I used to know. I can't tell you much about him. I'm not sure I know him very well."

"So you don't know his family history?" Bichiko asked.

"Apart from a few personality disorders," she responded bleakly. "No."

"What about the baby?" Bichiko pressed on. "Do you know the sex yet?"

After a brief moment of hesitation, Kakashi told her, "We think it's a boy."

"Oh!" The woman looked pleased. "I've thought of several names for boys."

"You have?" Sakura hedged uncertainly.

"I'm quite fond of old fashioned names myself. Maybe something like Kentaro or Shinpachi?"

"I see." The peculiar feeling that had crept over in the adoption agency's office was back, settling heavily in her chest. She wanted to be a million miles away from this room, away from the two people sitting across from her who would take away the child growing inside her, and away from the third sitting beside her who never seemed to care enough about the things most important to her.

Suddenly the room seemed a little quieter and Sakura realised the three people around the table were looking at her. "Sorry?" she asked distractedly.

"I said, are you from around here, Sakura?" Bichiko asked her pleasantly.

"No," Sakura said, thinking of her distant home. "I mean… yes, I am. I, ah…" What was it she was supposed to say again?

Kakashi leaned in to save her. "I'm afraid my friend is a little tired. She's had a hard day and several hard months. I think I need to take her home, but perhaps we can meet up again some other time?"

He was ending the meeting already? Sakura couldn't say she was anything but relieved, yet the disappointment on Bichiko's face said it all. "I'm sorry," she whispered, unable to articulate even to herself what was wrong. "It was nice meeting you and… your husband."

Kakashi held out a hand and helped her up and after a few more formal goodbyes they slipped out of the café. A scowl had begun to form on Sakura's face once they were out of sight on the street.

"You," she hissed. "What's with you? Since when did you decide you weren't the father? Since when did _we _decide to tell them that?"

"Sorry," he said, sounding a little contrite. "But I could see she thought I was some kind of lowlife."

"Oh!" Sakura pulled a face at him. "I wonder how she got that impression!"

"I thought it was better if you just told them whatever the hell you wanted to say about the father," he sighed. "And easier for her to think she's adopting off a single mother rather than a couple."

"We're not a couple," Sakura retorted vehemently. "Not even close."

"We're still together," he pointed out. "That's as good as. Better she think I'm just a friend helping a friend if you don't want to get into too much detail about the real nature of our relationship which is a little too complex to follow sometimes even for _me_."

"That's because you're emotionally retarded."

"Is that your medical opinion?"

"Absolutely," she steamed.

"What about you?" he asked as they cut their way through swathes of crowds. "That's twice now you've frozen up when someone's asked you a question. Either you're not well or you're not nearly as certain about what you're doing as you'd have me believe."

Sakura stopped short on the pavement. "What?" she snapped.

He drew to a halt and looked back at her. "I saw the way you looked when that woman suggested names," he said. "Like you thought she was being unspeakably rude."

"She _was_ a little quick off the mark, I thought," she grumbled.

"So? It's your baby for the next three months, but it'll be hers for the rest of its life. Biological mothers don't get a say, Sakura." He sighed again and folded his arms. "Not that it really matters anyway since I think you already decided she's not going to be the receiver."

Sakura's chin stuck defiantly in the air. "I think _you_ decided that actually," she remarked. "You dragged me out there so fast I hadn't managed to decide _anything_ yet."

"You saw her husband, didn't you?"

She could barely even remember what he looked like. "A little shy," she said.

"Maybe, but he didn't look all that interested," Kakashi told her. "Tell me you noticed that at least."

"He had the same expression as you," Sakura ground out. "I'm so used to being around men who look bored and disinterested in me that I don't even care to notice anymore."

Kakashi gave a roll of his eyes at her flippant answer. "You were the one who wanted this, Sakura," he sighed. "You're the one who should be telling me what you thought of them."

"I don't know what to think of them," she said, growing fraught and exasperated with him. "We only met with them for a couple of minutes – how is anyone supposed to form a fully rounded opinion of the people who would be their child's parents in just a couple of minutes? You shouldn't have rushed me out of there so-"

"You were messing up," he interrupted. "You froze again and you left with me no choice. You _have_ to keep it together if this is what you want."

"But this _isn't_ what I want!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she'd stepped out of the invisible box where she and her feelings were safe from this man. She saw Kakashi's eyebrows shoot up – both of them – and wanted to bite her own tongue. Without a word she shoved past him and continued walking down the pavement in the vague direction she guessed their hotel lay.

"You don't want to do this?" Kakashi called out as he followed her. "If that's true, what are you doing here? If you didn't come to Ame to sort out this adoption then what did you come for?"

It was only natural he suspect her of using him. He was an intelligent man after all, even if he was prone to underestimating her. "Just because I'm not happy with my circumstances doesn't mean my other choice is any better," she snapped over her shoulder. "Never in my life did I ever think it would be _pleasant_ to give up a baby to strangers, and apparently I was right. I don't want to give it up, but I want to be a mother a whole lot less, so step expecting me to be able to keep it together all the time because it seems like no matter which choice I make I'll lose. And _you_ don't care about it, so what's it to you anyway?"

His hand caught her wrist, not only pulling her to a sudden halt but also pulling her against him. Sakura had no time to react before his arms went loosely around her back and she couldn't see much over his shoulder.

This was when Sakura learnt something very interesting. Given Kakashi's propensity to preserve his privacy at all costs, even going as far as to cover his face when outside his own home, Sakura had imagined he would be the kind of person who was very down on public displays of affection. But while she had ever been particularly troubled by seeing the occasional couple kiss and cuddle in the middle of a street, she realized the only one who felt self-conscious here was _her_.

"What are you doing?" she grunted, trying to push against him with her elbows to gain some room between them. People were looking. Sakura's face heated, not just out of embarrassment but in anger too. "Who do you think you are – you have _no _right to-"

"I care about _you_," Kakashi cut her off, absolutely refusing to let her go. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"You care about _yourself_ more than you ever care about anyone else, let alone me, and certainly not this baby!" she snapped, shoving against him.

"I care," he said again. "I'm sorry I don't always know how to show it, but if I didn't I wouldn't be so sure that those people aren't good enough parents for any child of ours."

She scoffed at him, feeling he was putting his lack of basic human empathy very lightly, but her resistance began to fade. At some points throughout the last few months she had wanted a lover's arms around her with such a longing that it physically hurt. Even when she knew he was the last person she should be taking comfort from, some part of her was mollified by the embrace, greedily soaking in his warmth and strength and his admission that it was _their_ child, not just hers alone.

"We'll try again another day," he said as his fingers brushed lightly against the back of her head. "We won't settle for anyone who is less than perfect."

"Yeah…" she sighed, her chin propped against his shoulder as she gazed out across the street. There was a prominent sign a few hundred yards away, offering directions to the Ame Telegram services… a place where a short simple message could be broadcast anywhere in the world for a small fee, even Konoha if you had the right ID.

Kakashi eased back and gave her a small, sad smile as he slipped a hand over her hair. "Let's go eat, ok?"

She nodded, and turned her eyes away from the sign to give him a tentative smile in response. "Ok."

* * *

Next Chapter: _Pregnancy and You_


	32. Pregnancy and You

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-One: Pregnancy and You

* * *

_Did you stop at any time, have doubts at any stage?_

_And were you calm or were you numb or happy just to get it done?_

_I've lived my life without regret until today._

* * *

Many times they returned to that café. The drinks were putrid and the food was stale, and the only reason they went was because it seemed that every other morning the agency had left a message at the hotel's front desk with another appointment to meet another prospective couple.

Sakura went along with it every time, jangled with equal amounts of trepidation and eagerness to meet and surpass the expectations from these people who thought_ they_ were ready to be parents, yet each meeting managed to leave her even more unsure about herself in a number of ways. For instance, when they met the couple who made their livelihood in diving and fishing in the lake upon which Ame was built, Sakura came away wholly concerned.

"You're from… the second level?" Kakashi had asked the couple.

"Yes."

"And you're a fisherman?"

"Yes. We dive for clams in the lake. It's a family business."

Sakura always paid very close attention to the people sitting opposite her, and that time she couldn't help but notice that the man only had one arm. "Aren't there… giant, man eating pike in the lake?"

"Yes," the man had replied. "I've lost three of my brothers, my father and my grandfather to those cursed fish."

"Those cursed fish," his wife tutted in agreement.

"And this is a family business, you say?" Kakashi had sounded hesitant, perhaps surprised that he'd finally come across a profession more dangerous than his own.

"Oh, yes."

They were nice people, with an obviously strong work ethic, and Sakura imagined they would be perfect parents… if not for the fact that she suspected that the chances of any child of these well-meaning people being gobbled up by a giant pike during his youth was about five thousand percent more than it would be for children of any other couple. She and Kakashi had made some polite hedging noises, saying they wanted to go away and have a think before committing just yet. Afterwards they both silently agreed to keep looking. When it came to getting the child to the age of ten with all its limbs intact, she felt even _she_ might do a better job.

Now that was a scary thought.

The couple that came after them filled her with even less enthusiasm. For most of the meeting she had sat and analyzed the tall man and woman sitting opposite, who had sat and analyzed her right back with twice as much haughty scrutiny. She'd thought 'looking down the nose' had just been a figure of speech until she saw these two, who literally stared down at her with their heads tilted back as if she was the source of some ungodly smell.

When the woman had asked, "Can I be assured that you have taken _no_ drugs during the course of your pregnancy?" Sakura knew any child raised by these two would become an unbearable snot.

So instead she wrinkled her nose at Kakashi, as per their secret code for '_no fucking chance',_ and they'd walked away with little sympathy that their search for children of their own would continue on without them.

As arrogant and selfish as Sakura worried she could be on occasion, she didn't think she was that bad. Once again she wondered at her suspicion that she herself would make a better mother by comparison.

The fourth couple had been surprisingly young, and the wife only a couple of years older than Sakura herself.

"We always knew we wanted children, my husband and I, so we've had ourselves on the waiting list for two years now. I've known I couldn't have children since I was very young, so we thought if we're going to adopt, there was no point waiting." The young wife had smiled beatifically at Sakura. "You're so pretty, I hope she takes after you."

Flattered, but confused, all Sakura could utter in response was a faint, "Ah…"

Kakashi, at least, was immune to flattery. "She is a he. Didn't the agent tell you?"

"Oh. No." The disappointment of the couple's face had been so palpable, even Sakura's heart had sank for them. They'd come expecting a female baby only to find a boy instead, and when they had looked at each other, Sakura could have sworn she saw the young woman wiggle her nose disapprovingly at her husband.

For the first time, she and Kakashi were the ones to whom the 'thanks, but no thanks' speech was given to. Sakura couldn't ignore the twitch of relief as she watched them depart, because other than their own objection to the gender of the baby, Sakura didn't think she could think of anything else that was objectionable about the couple themselves that would give her a good reason to dismiss them.

Kakashi had suggested the only reason she had found them otherwise perfect was because the woman had told her she was pretty.

"A sign of a very intelligent woman," she'd retorted.

"Pity about the blindness," he'd responded, which had earned him a fist in the ribs that he'd complained about for the rest of the night.

But if Sakura had though the young couple with hope and kindness shining in their eyes had been a tough act to beat, it was the plump couple with jolly smiles that held even more promise. These were the very epitome of parents just waiting to happen to someone. Sakura liked the way the woman laughed easily like a good friend, and the husband smiled pleasantly throughout – quiet, but showing a definite interest in Sakura where certain other husbands hadn't. Nothing about them immediately struck her as strange or creepy; in fact it was difficult to pinpoint anything unsuitable about this couple as the conversation progressed.

"Your hair is… so unusual," the wife had told her, without a whiff of pretence. "But I like it. Don't you dear?"

"Yes. It's very exotic," her husband had agreed with a warm smile.

Throughout all the interviews, Kakashi had rarely appeared to pay that much attention to the couple sitting opposite, but this was the one time he swung his gaze sharply towards the husband and said, "You'll get a big head with all these compliments, Sakura love."

He'd pulled the figurative rug from under her feet. "I – what?"

The couple had looked at him in surprise, and suddenly they were bubbling forth with the question that had obviously been on their minds since they'd arrived. Was Kakashi the father?

Kakashi was always consistent in denying any parental right over this child in every single interview, so Sakura had no reason to think he'd own up now. Then again, he'd never called her 'love' in front of anyone before… in fact he hadn't ever called her anything near as intimate, even when they really _had _been intimate.

So she couldn't be too surprised when he decided to smile and say, "Yes, I'm the father."

The couple had appraised him with new eyes; the wife curious and the husband slipping into disapproval. Two expressions that only intensified when Kakashi's hand landed on her far shoulder as if it belonged there. Perhaps if the couple had been looking at the expression on Sakura's face they would have realised this wasn't a totally natural arrangement of their limbs, but instead they were looking at Kakashi and his sudden display of possessive affection.

The hand remained on Sakura's shoulder until after the plump couple left, and the moment they were out of sight, Sakura had punched him hard in the ribs. Again.

"What was that for?" he'd protested.

"What was _that_ for?" she'd snapped back.

"He was eyeing you up," was all he'd grumbled back.

Sakura had stared at him, dizzy and uncomprehending. "_Who?_"

"The husband. They're a definite _no_, by the way. I'm not having this kid raised by a father who was attracted to its mother."

That had made little to no sense, but Sakura was glad that at least one of them had managed to come up with an excuse to refuse them. She would run out a wiggle room eventually. The weeks were slipping by and it was only a matter of time before a couple arrived who was so perfect in every way that Sakura would have to fall on her knees begging these angels take this baby from its unworthy mother.

The days passed with an uncomfortable mixture of anxiety and complacency. It was hard to relax when every other day she had to go meet a new set of strangers so that she might finally make the most difficult and important decision of her life. She always felt easier after a failed interview, even if the respite was brief, when she could relax in their hotel room and try to figure out how many times she was supposed to pearl relative to the number of times she knit. A very fetching and only slightly bedraggled red scarf was beginning to emerge from her efforts.

But she was not cooped up in the hotel all the time. Often she wheedled Kakashi into accompanying her to some new part of the village to see new sights or visit new places to eat, or new avenues of entertainment. He never let her go out alone, and the few times when he left her alone in the hotel, he always made sure to leave Pakkun behind. Sometimes she reckoned he still fancied himself as her jailer. Sometimes she wondered if he really was only concerned about her safety, especially when he always asked, before he left, "You still have my scroll, don't you?"

To which Sakura would always reply with an exasperated, "_Yeees_, mother," and flap her pockets at him to demonstrate the numerous bulges of things that might or might not have been important life-saving scrolls.

Every time he left her, she always wondered if she should just stuff Pakkun in a closet and make her way to the Ame telegrams. She wanted at least to contact her Hokage and her friends and let them know she was alright, and find out if they themselves were alright now that the hostilities between Iwa and Konoha had ended. But… then she would also be compelled to tell the truth. Explain why she hadn't contacted them before. Explain why Kakashi had cut her off from Konoha deliberately. Explain his relation to the Hatake clan, and their relation to the Syndicate that had done so thoroughly a job of bringing Konoha to its knees.

One little devil on her shoulder said it was what he deserved. The other little devil, for Sakura had no angel, wondered why she wanted to rock the boat when she was, despite everything… enjoying herself here. Their plan had worked. They'd tripped the Syndicate up mid-stride, ended a war, and now they wiled away their days in peace.

Even if the successive interviews wore her out, she liked the time she spent with Kakashi. He irritated to the point where she wanted to throw things at him sometimes, but his company was good just as often. She liked dragging him to the war history museums and art galleries and watching him stare blankly at the exhibitions as if he was being informed on the history of toast. She liked it that he held out an umbrella for her when it rained, and fetched whatever she needed on a whim, whether it was food or blankets or heat pads for her poor back. She liked that he did everything she asked without giving any indication that he thought she was a nuisance. And she liked that he smiled at her more often, that mild and reticent one that he used to give her, before the ugliness at the Zuru estate had robbed them of all joy. Away from that place, it felt like their wounds were healing. Still raw, and easily aggravated were those wounds, but Sakura found she could smile back just as often.

She did, however, _absolutely hate it_ when he picked up her knitting and did a much better job in half the time. The fifth time he'd done it, she'd waited until he'd left on one of her errands for apples, and had blithely tossed one of his Icha Icha books out of the window and watched it flutter all eighty stories to the ground.

Kakashi had appeared half an hour later with a bag of apples and that same book in his hand, commenting wryly that it was raining Icha Icha. Such was the diversity of the famed rain in the rain country.

It was hard to stay mad at him after that.

So Sakura felt surprisingly content right now, sitting on the window seat, patiently knitting her rapidly growing scarf that was almost as long as she was… for the plain and simple fact that she couldn't remember how to stop.

"I need to buy a knitting book," she told Pakkun, her only companion in the hotel room since Kakashi had charged off to visit the adoption agency half an hour ago, something she no longer desire getting involved in if she could help it.

"Tell Kakashi when he gets back," Pakkun grunted. He was stretched on his back beside her, in a fine nest of the same red scarf she was working on. "He'll get something for you."

"Why? I can buy one myself," Sakura retorted.

"You'll still have to wait for Kakashi to get back," he reminded.

"No, I don't. I have money. I can go out and buy one myself right now."

Pakkun righted himself. "Kakashi won't like that."

"Kakashi can bite me," she said cheerfully. "He's not my master. If I want to go out on my own, I can. He's not here to stop me." She was already setting down her knitting to begin searching for her umbrella.

"I can stop you," Pakkun said, although even he sounded like he didn't believe it.

She snorted at him. "You're not going to stop me. You're coming with me."

He cocked his head. He was sort of cute when he did that, but not as cute as any one of her cats. "Eh?"

"Look," she said as she tugged on her shoes, "I know he doesn't trust me-"

"He's just looking out for your safety-"

"As well, maybe, but that's not the only reason he wants me under his thumb all the time. He thinks I'll go running off to contact Konoha if I go out alone, but how can I prove I'm trustworthy if he never gives me a chance. So me and you are going out, Pakkun, and when we come back you can tell Kakashi about everything we did and anyone we talked to. Then maybe he'll finally take that stick out of his ass."

The little pug still didn't look sure. "He won't be happy. He'll blame me."

"I'll protect you."

"Sakura-"

"Pakkun." She pointed the umbrella at him. "I'll buy you biscuits."

"I'd rather have sausages."

"Very well. I'll buy you sausages." She pulled her bag over her shoulder and looked back at him. "You coming?"

He gave a put-upon sigh that he'd undoubtedly learned from his human, and jumped down off the seat to follow her out the door. "You have Kakashi's scroll?"

"_Yeees._" As if she would ever be given the opportunity to forget.

It was more liberating than she expected, walking out of the hotel without someone breathing down her neck. This was probably the first time in months that she had something resembling freedom, if it weren't for the little dog that was practically stepping on her heels. He obviously felt some since of duty to stick _very_ close, or he was just as scared as Kakashi about crossing very tall bridges. At least Pakkun had the excuse of being a particularly small dog who could very well be picked up by any strong gust of wind and carried over the side of the bridge like an autumn leaf, so Sakura didn't laugh at him too much.

She visited the same multi-story mall Kakashi had shown her on their first day in Ame. Her first stop was a small supermarket to buy a packet of sausages to appease her anxious canine companion, and she left him to enjoy his meal by the doors of the bookshop while she went inside to browse. Within minutes she located the hobby and craft section and had selected a decent looking book on knitting, but she had no intention of rushing herself to the checkout counter or rushing back to the hotel. This was her first successful escape; she could at least make the most of it.

Scanning the rows of books, it wasn't long before her gaze landed on a section titled _pregnancy and child raising_. She froze. Was it too much like tempting fate? But if there was anything more relevant to Sakura's interests these days, she didn't know what it was.

Her uncertain hand wandered over the titles on the spines before she arbitrarily paused on one that seemed to have a nice, general title. "Pregnancy and You; What to Expect," she murmured, cracking open the book about three quarters of the way through, figuring that at nearly eight months, there wasn't much left to expect.

She read advice on sleeping positions and exercise, and warnings to take rest and spend 'bonding time' with the baby. What struck her most were the pages and pages of pretty women looking happy and content and gazing warmly at their baby bumps, or else holding beautiful babies in their arms. None of them looked worried and concerned about how on earth they were going to look after a baby. None of them looked as if they ever suffered back-ache, or abdominal pains, or any number of other nagging little sufferings that Sakura had come to live with over the past few months – save for that blonde woman on page seventy four who had a contrived frown next to a section discussing constipation.

Sakura flipped over a few more pages, browsing more according to the pictures than the text, until she came to one double-spread that nearly made her eyes pop out.

_Sex positions…_

She almost slammed the book shut in shame. Curiosity and a quick, furtive glance over her shoulder to check that she was alone stayed her hand. She felt like a virgin with her first dirty romance. Sex positions? _Seriously. _Was there anything more indecent than…?

At least the photographs had been traded for diagrams instead, but still far too explicit in Sakura's opinion. _For some women, pregnancy can be a time of intensified sexual arousal, _ it read, _and you may want to make the most of it. Your usual position may become increasingly uncomfortable further into your pregnancy, so here are some of the more comfortable ones you can try out._

Usual position? Having only actually had sex just the once, Sakura couldn't claim to have much preference. Her only experience was of the plain old missionary – though she didn't know whether Kakashi preferred that one or if it was just what they'd sort of fallen into. The diagrams revealed all sorts of possibilities she hadn't even considered. Some she recognised – the woman riding on top, namely, and the doggy-style (she should just be thankful Kakashi hadn't tried that the first time). Then there was one that looked like innocent spooning, and another where the woman lay on her side and the man straddled one of her legs to enter from-

"Sakura?"

"Yes?!" Sakura flipped the page so fast she heard it tear. She hunted for the source of the voice, suddenly sure it was Kakashi who had snuck up on her, but then she remembered even he didn't sound so rough and grumbly. At her feet, Pakkun looked up at her, a little sausage meat smudged on his chin that he'd missed. "What?" she asked him, snapping guiltily.

"I'm being summoned by my pack," he told her. "I have to go… will you be alright making it back on your own?"

Sakura told him what she'd been trying to tell Kakashi all along. "I'm not an invalid."

"Yeah, well you have the scroll at least," he sighed and vanished into the air. He wouldn't be able to summon himself back to her side. Only the human who held the contract and members of his own pack could call him, which meant that Pakkun would be summoning himself straight to Kakashi once his business had been concluded with the other dogs… and then Kakashi would know she was out on her own, and then he'd be turning Ame over in his hunt for her.

Rolling her eyes, she knew it was best if she started on her way back…

She looked at the book in her hand, her thumb still caught on the page with all the naughty positions, and she couldn't help but picture herself and Kakashi in that one called 'the Cowgirl'. It was silly, because if he ever tried such a thing she would kick him so hard this would be the first and last child he would ever have. And yet she'd be lying to herself if she said she hadn't at least _sometimes_ thought about Kakashi that way. After you slept with a man it was impossible to entertain purely platonic thoughts or feelings about him… even if he did reveal himself to be one of the bad guys.

Surreptitiously she added the pregnancy book to her one on knitting and spent a few more minutes gathering other little guides and handbooks that might come in handy on a rainy day.

The woman on the till looked at her in delight. "When is it due?" she cooed as she rung up the order.

"Too soon," was all Sakura replied, not wanting to encourage the conversation. She knew from experience that everyone she told only ever reacted in surprise that she was already so big at only X number of months.

She was more and more sure that this would be one hell of a fat baby when it was born, and probably not cute at all as Kakashi had predicted. Which was pretty disheartening. It would be devastating if the adopting couple took one look at it and politely refused to take it away.

Hale was beginning to fall by the time she made it back to the hotel – little white stones pelted her umbrella all the way across the bridge, and they were still caught in her hair when she entered her room. All the way there she'd felt uneasy, as if someone was watching her in a way that had made the hair prickle along the back of her neck - a sensation caused by guilt, she reckoned. She wondered if Kakashi was stalking her, angry at her unannounced disappearance, but no – instead she found Kakashi sitting on the end of the bed with the most formidable frown she'd ever seen.

"Where've you been?" he asked in a low tone.

"Shopping," she said truthfully. "Ask Pakkun."

"Shopping," he repeated, and she could see he was struggling to decide whether or not to believe her. For all he knew she'd just gone to Ame telegrams and sent a message to Konoha saying _"Kakashi's the father, he's a spy for the Syndicate, and they're all hiding out at the Zuru estate. Kill them all! Stop."_

Sakura had no patience to dance around the issue. Her feet hurt and her back ached and she just wanted to rest. "I didn't talk to anyone or send any messages," she said, sitting down at the window to drop her shopping back by her feet. "Really. Ask Pakkun. He got summoned by his pack a few minutes ago in the bookshop, and I came straight back from there. If you don't believe me, you can get him to follow my scent trail from where he left me. He can prove to you I didn't go anywhere else."

Kakashi's frown softened a little and he ran a hand through his hair. "I don't like you going out alone, is all. It's not that I don't trust you-"

"Except you don't, right?" she sighed. "I get it. If I wanted to, I could get you into a _lot_ of trouble. But I don't _want_ to do that if I don't have to, and I don't have to since Iwa and the Syndicate backed off. So you can trust me when I say I just went down to the bookstore. I just wanted a knitting book."

"It's not just that," he went on patiently. "I worry about you. It's not safe here. Just because we're away from the Zuru family and my clan doesn't mean trouble won't sniff us out somehow."

She quirked her mouth to one side and said nothing. Nowhere was perfectly safe, that was true, but she had a good sense for danger. Just because her chakra had been neutralised didn't mean she'd lost her instincts, although, yes, there had been that uneasy feeling before as she'd walked across the bridge.

"I'm sorry you think I'm a nag, but maybe one of these days you'll thank my vigilance."

Not likely.

"What did you get anyway?" he asked, reached for the shopping bag at her feet.

"Ah – no!" But she was too late to stop him from reaching inside the grab the biggest book. His eyebrow tilted up in surprise.

"Pregnancy and You?" he read, giving her an amused look.

Sakura's face heated and she blew a pout at him. "What of it?" she challenged.

"Nothing… it's just, after nearly eight months aren't you leaving the research a little late?" he wondered, flicking through the book. She saw him pause at a certain page… and she knew exactly which one judging by the rip in the paper, but unlike her he didn't react in scandal. Then again, he was a renowned fan of eroticism.

And knowing that, she didn't want to give him ideas. "It has some very useful advice," she told him virtuously.

"You think so?" He turned his head sideways slightly to regard the page.

"Give that back," she huffed, standing to snatch the book back. Kakashi swiftly manoeuvred it out of her reach. "It's not for you, it's for me. _You're _not pregnant, are you?"

"That doesn't mean I'm not interested," he shot back, thankfully flipping away from the naughty pages. "See, here it has advice for expecting fathers."

"Oh?" she couldn't hide her curiosity. "What does it say?"

"It says I should be your slave; plump your pillows, feed you by hand, rub your feet – this was written by a woman, wasn't it?"

"Heaven forbid you do something considerate for me," she teased, though she knew she was being unfair. After all his running around back and forth fetching her food and pillows and taking messages from the agency, she couldn't call him a total layabout.

Kakashi knew it too. "I do many considerate things for you," he rebuked, responding in feigned indignance. "Like how I sometimes don't hide the remote control from you."

She smiled. "You're sweet like that."

"I know," he sighed blithely. But he paused and looked at the book thoughtfully for a moment. "Maybe I should be a little more considerate?"

"Huh?" She couldn't think of anything she wanted him to do for her right now.

He moved over on the bed, patting the coverlet. "Here. I'll rub your feet."

Her expression must have spelled horror, because he only cocked his head and asked, "What's the matter?"

"I don't want you to," she protested.

"They don't smell, do they?"

"_No!_" she cried.

"Then what's the problem?" he asked innocently, patting the bed again. "Seriously, hop up. I bet your feet are sore from all that walking."

They were, but she could cope and she didn't really need a foot massage. "You don't have to," she said, trying to wriggle out of the deal.

"I insist," he said, which was usually something you said to someone who secretly wanted a foot rub but was too polite to accept, but the way Kakashi said it gave her the impression that there was no room to refuse.

Slowly and cautiously, as if she was submitting herself to a Chinese burn instead of a massage, Sakura sat down on the bed and swung her feet up. Kakashi caught them and pulled them into his lap, ignoring her squeak of surprise. "Have you ever done this before?" she asked uncertainly. She knew all the nerves in the foot and how pressing certain pressure points could give someone violently debilitating leg cramps, and if Kakashi pressed any by accident-

"I've done this before," he reassured her, and his large, warm hands enclosed around her cool toes.

But Sakura was having difficulty imagining what other feet Kakashi would deign himself to rub. "Who?" she asked.

He didn't respond as he gently, but firmly, kneaded his thumb along the outer edge of each foot. He definitely knew what he was doing. "Some people," he responded loftily.

Sakura doubted he'd ever done this for a man, which just left women, and given his reluctance to be specific, she would guess those women were former lovers. Foot massages were, after all, a pretty intimate activity.

She didn't really know any of Kakashi's former lovers. About five years ago there had been a rumour that he'd been sweet on the ramen chef's daughter, and it had been true that for a while he had spent an awful lot of time in Ichiraku Ramen, despite professing not to care too much for ramen, and when Ayame had left to visit relatives one month, Kakashi had coincidentally spent that month mooning around Konoha as if he'd lost one of his dogs. Had he ever given the ramen chef's daughter foot rubs like this?

More importantly, had he been engaged to Reika when he had? And had he given his fiancée a few foot rubs too?

She told her brain to shut up. They may be having a child but that didn't really mean his love life was any of her business, and if he was a cheating asshole who kept a doting fiancée in one village and chased girls in another, what was it to her? She wasn't involved with him. They weren't in a relationship. She had no reason to get annoyed and jealous and – holy mother of Jashin, _that felt good!_

Sakura bit her lip and tried not to moan out loud, but her treacherous knees trembled anyway. The way his thumbs pressed right along the arch of each foot and the sensitive pressure point right in the centre did strange things to her body. Warm feelings radiated from his touch, rolling up her legs to her arms and her fingers and back again to the very tips of her toes. This wasn't a massage! She'd had massages before and she'd given massages, but nothing had ever felt like this! Everyone always said the feet were an erogenous zone, but only now did Sakura discover what the hell that meant. Why else would the act of rubbing her _feet_ be setting of such a familiar, sensual thrum in her blood.

She hadn't felt like this since the night he'd-

"Ok, that's enough," Sakura yelped suddenly, pulling her feet away from the source of the delicious sensations. Put it down to the naughty illustrations in her book or an extra sensitivity brought on from pregnancy, or any number of things including the lingering attraction she'd always held for this man – but if she didn't put a stop to this now, she would only end up embarrassing herself.

"What's the matter?" Kakashi asked, perfectly oblivious to her panic.

"I – nothing." She tried to scoot further back to rest her back against the pillows, and in the process knocked the heavy '_Pregnancy and You'_ book with her knee. She watched it slide off the bed, unable to reach out fast enough to save it, and heard it hit the floor with an enormous thump.

The baby inside her gave a start.

"Oh," she gasped and froze, her hand automatically clasped to her belly.

Now Kakashi was really concerned. "What's wrong?" he asked, just as motionless as she was and probably worried of doing anything to make whatever it was worse.

"It's nothing," she quickly reassured him, giving him a hesitant smile that was a touch amazed. "I think the loud noise made him jump, that's all. Weird..."

Kakashi's eyes widened in surprise at her. "He… jumped…?"

Of course, he wasn't even aware the baby moved at all. Sakura had never enlightened him, and she wondered why she'd chosen to share the fact with him now. "Sometimes he somersaults, I swear," she laughed, "when he's not punching my ribs or kicking my bladder."

"_Really?"_ He looked as if he almost didn't believe her.

Sakura stared back at him and chewed her lip. All of a sudden she was shy and hesitant, all because she knew what she was about to offer. "Would you… like to feel?"

The last time he'd touched her had been months ago, and he'd only done so to spring a trap on her and her fellow maids, something that still stung and she'd never forget it. But this time Sakura was the one offering, and she could see in his face that he _was_ curious. At four months, there hadn't been much to feel but a bump, and a lot of things had changed since then that Kakashi had no idea about.

"You don't mind?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head and reached for his hand to pull him closer until he sat next to her hip, then she pressed it over her belly. "You might have to give him a moment," she whispered into a room that had gone very still and very quiet. Sakura hardly even breathed as they waited in total silence, both of them completely focused on the mysterious bump beneath her dress that had, for the last six months been a source of a lot of woe for them.

A curious tapping. Kakashi looked up at her expectantly. "Is that-"

"My stomach rumbling. I'm hungry," Sakura cut him off flatly. "You'll know when you feel it because-"

And right then a tiny, petulant fist thumped Kakashi's palm. Sakura's eyes shot to his face, eager to know his reaction, and saw amused bewilderment there.

"Ow," he laughed. "He's got your fists. Does he always hit that hard?"

"Only when I'm trying to sleep usually," she sighed, smiling despite herself. She couldn't help it. Kakashi's amusement and curiosity was infectious, and she wondered if she might have witnessed it sooner in him if she'd invited him to feel the baby before now.

But slowly his smile was muting, and after a few seconds he drew his hand away to place it on the mattress where he stared at it thoughtfully. "The agency wants us to meet with another couple tomorrow," he said quietly. "Same time, same place."

And in once sentence, all the warm pleasure and joy drained out of Sakura. She tried to hold her composure, but it slipped irretrievably between her fingers until she found herself struggling to maintain a painful smile. "Right," she said tightly, trying to turn her head away so he wouldn't notice.

Normally she had no trouble keeping her a cool mask of indifference when he spoke to her of matters of adoption – one topic that was always guaranteed to give her a tight feeling in her chest. But to go from lowering her guard to having to force it back up in the space of a sentence left her scrabbling for a mask she'd momentarily misplaced. Maybe he'd done it deliberately? He was so used to masks he knew exactly how to pry them away from others, and there was no hiding anymore. He knew.

Kakashi caught her chin and forced her back to face him, his gaze suddenly sharp and curious. She was pinned. When he dropped his hand back to the mattress she was encased between an arm either side of her ribs, and with him suddenly so close there was no where else for Sakura to look but down to avoid him.

"You hate this, don't you?" he breathed.

She pulled a face and rolled her eyes. "I'm not loving it, no."

"Every time I mention an appointment, you sulk. Every time we leave a failed appointment, you practically skip." He sighed and tipped his head. "You've grown attached, haven't you?"

She drummed her fingers against her belly restlessly, trying to think of the least incriminating response. "So?" was the best she could come up with. "You got attached to that family of mice living under your sink, even though they were pooping in your cereal and gnawing holes in everything. You got really upset when Dokko cleaned them out for you, but you knew it was for the best."

"That isn't really the same…" he said quietly.

"That's exactly the same!" she responded stubbornly.

"Alright, it's the same." It wasn't, but Kakashi knew it was easier to let it go. He'd argued with her enough times in the past to know when she was attempting to derail the conversation. "I got attached to my mice, and you've gotten attached to your baby. It's only natural. Even you can have trouble fighting against one hell of an ancient maternal instinct. It's not wrong to care about a kicking, punching little monster inside you."

Sakura clenched her teeth together. What was the point in this? "So what if I care?" she asked sullenly. "That doesn't change anything."

"Sakura, you don't have to give this baby up," he whispered.

Her eyes flew up to meet his, her mouth dropping open in shock. There were no words that could accurately convey just how – oh, wait, yes there were. "You're crazy!" she cried. "I can't keep this baby!"

"And if you give it away, are you going to be living with regret for the rest of your life?" he pointed out.

Her mouth worked. "For the rest of my…?" She shook her head fervently. "No, no – what do you take me for? I'm going to be _relieved _when they take this thing away, it's been nothing but a pain. What the hell would I do with a baby, Kakashi? I need to work to make a living – I can't be charging off into battle with a baby strapped to my back! I can't leave it at home while I pull sixteen hours shifts at the hospital! Maybe if my mother was still alive, she would be able to help… but I'm on my own, I have no house and no money and if I take this thing back to Konoha, the only way I could survive would be to sponge off my friends for the next eighteen years. I can't… I can't live like that. Don't ask me to."

"I'm not asking anything of you," he said with tired patience. "Whatever you think is best, that is what we'll do. But this baby is my burden too, and I never wanted to be the one to force you into a decision that would make you unhappy. Giving up this baby is making you unhappy – don't argue, I'm only _half_ blind. Any fool can see you're unhappy. But if you keep it, I understand the sacrifices you'd be making, and that's not fair either."

"So why are we even talking about this?" she demanded with a scowl. "Seems like we've talked ourselves in a nice big circle and come right back to where we started. Adoption is the only choice."

"No, it's not," Kakashi murmured, looking down at her hand which rested on her stomach.

There was a strange expression on his face. Sakura caught it and frowned at him wonderingly. She didn't really see what else they could do. She couldn't keep this child, and so the only option was to give it to a proper, loving home here in Ame. Yes, it would upset her when the time came, and yes, it probably wasn't something you got over very quickly, but unless he was proposing to use a marvellous memory removal jutsu on her, there was little else she could do.

Of course, if he actually did have a memory removal jutsu, he would've used it on her a long time ago to remove any recollection of the syndicate from her mind.

"I can't keep him," Sakura told him quietly, hoping he'd understand. "It wouldn't be fair on him. He deserves to have a proper family, with a secure roof, and disposable income to buy him lots of toys. I can't… keep him just because I'm selfish."

He nodded. "You're right. He deserves to have a real family."

She had hoped that his agreement would reassure her, instead the tight feeling came rushing back to claim her lungs. But this was the fact of the matter. The right decision was not going to be the one that made her feel good.

Kakashi slipped his fingers over hers. They were warm and calloused, but always so strong and sure of themselves. "You can give up the baby if you want to," he told her, eyes meeting hers with unshakable resolve. "But if you want to keep him, you should have a right to that choice too."

"I can't raise a baby on my own, Kakashi," she whispered pleadingly. How many times would he make her say it?

He smiled his old diffident smile. "You wouldn't be alone if you married me."

* * *

Next Chapter: _Mrs. Hatake_


	33. Mrs Hatake

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Two: Mrs. Hatake

* * *

_Don't throw yourself like that in front of me._

_I kissed your mouth, your back,_

_Is that all you need?_

* * *

Tsunade's flat, human claws tapped a slow rhythm on her desk. Every time Pakkun came before her and prostrated himself to the alpha female of the village, it seemed like the tempo of that tapping steadily grew slower. It was as if there was a restless anger and anxiety inside her that had, over the months and weeks, crystallised into a remote but mature fury. Even Pakkun, a dog who could no more read human expressions that he could read the expressions of monkeys, recognised the rage in this woman. It had been growing older, and colder, but only on the outside. Beneath the surface it smouldered away like the gut of a volcano on whose slopes had grown vast green meadows of flora and fauna during its dormancy. But the volcano would find its outlet one day, and the devastation would be total.

Pakkun knew _he _would be that outlet if he didn't watch what he said.

"They're… _adopting_."

"Yes, Hokage."

Her tapping claw stopped and she traced her fingers from one side of her jaw to the other with a roll of her head. "And they've relocated to… _Ame_."

"Yes." Pakkun didn't like the way she repeated his words back at him with a slightly disbelieving sneer.

"Did Kakashi fulfil my wishes?" she asked.

"Wishes?"

"To kill the man who impregnated Sakura," she said, as if it was obvious.

Pakkun didn't think he's ever get used to the bizarre human behaviour to treat pregnancy and birth like a terminal disease and a funeral. It didn't seem like _anyone_ was happy about Sakura's first litter.

"He says he refrained because killing the man responsible might compromise him," Pakkun explained. "He also says to tell you that he believes the man will probably get his deadly karmic justice any day now anyway."

"Hmph. That's very unsatisfying. I want that man's testicles for a purse."

"I shall inform Kakashi," Pakkun rumbled reverently.

"Is he also aware that his leave has run out?" Tsunade asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "Does he have _any _intention of returning?"

"Yes," Pakkun said slowly. "But I don't believe he'll leave Sakura, and he still doesn't believe she is fit to travel such a long distance."

"The council won't like this," Tsunade said thoughtfully, her claws resuming their _tap tap tap_ upon the table. "If he doesn't return to active duty on time, he'll be treated as a deserter. I'll have to send hunter-nin after him and things will be rather unpleasant. I can send someone to take his stead in looking after Sakura, but he _must_ return within the next week."

"I will tell him, but…"

"But what?" she snapped.

"I'm not sure he'd agree to leave her in someone else's care."

"Can you say 'tough'?"

"Yes."

"That was rhetorical. Tell Kakashi he has no choice. He comes back of his own volition, or he gets dragged back by the ear. Either way, we can't spare him anymore. He was absent through some of the worst days of the conflict. The council will not permit him to remain so. _I _cannot permit him to remain so."

Pakkun cocked one ear up. "Is the conflict not over?" he asked.

Tsunade sighed and stood. "Thank you for your report, little dog. I'm glad to hear that Sakura is safe and well, but the situation is quite serious. Make sure Kakashi understands that I'm not joking when I say I'll send hunter-nin after him if he's not back within a week."

"I will."

She rolled up the summoning scroll on her desk. "You may go then." To Pakkun's keen ears, she sounded tired and far older than she looked… though he had never been a good judge of human age. They all looked the same to him.

"Goodbye, Hokage."

"Thank you, Pakkun," she told him more sincerely. "Without you I'd have no idea of how Sakura was coping. I wish she'd felt she could trust me enough to tell me in the beginning… now I can't do much for her at all. I hate to think of how unhappy she might be."

Pakkun licked his nose thoughtfully. "Sakura doesn't seem totally unhappy. She goes out with Kakashi. She comes back laughing. And she seems to enjoy bossing him around, I sometimes think she has a summoning contract made out on _him_."

A small smile tugged at Tsunade's lips. "I see. Well, I'm glad she's not alone at least."

She gave him a nod of dismissal and Pakkun dissipated into the air. The moment the cloud of smoke faded, a man stood away from the wall behind the Hokage. He'd been standing so still and so silently not even the dog with his keen senses had noticed him.

Tsunade glanced at Shikamaru with a closed expression. "What do you think?"

And Shikamaru could only sigh and shake his head.

She looked away from him. "Get Tenzou."

Hundreds of miles away in a hotel room in Ame, Pakkun materialised beside his master with a due level of apprehension. After all, he'd been assigned to watch over Sakura in the hotel and not only had she completely flouted Kakashi's wishes, but Pakkun had been summoned away by members of his pack in Konoha in order to pass on more communications. So the little pug fully expected to have his ears boxed on arrival.

He was slightly surprised that while there was plenty of shouting, it didn't seem to be aimed at him.

"Sakura! Open this door right now!" Kakashi ordered, hammering his fist on the bathroom door.

"You're not my teacher! You're not my leader! You can't order me around!" her hoarse voice shouted back. "Leave me alone!"

"You're being totally irrational!"

"I'm not the irrational one here!"

"I'm counting to three and then I'm kicking the door down!"

"And I'll be leaning against it!"

Kakashi swore under his breath and hung his head between his arms for a moment. Seeing the lull in the heated argument, Pakkun seized his moment to hedge a soft, "Um…?"

"What?" Kakashi snapped.

"What did you do now?" Pakkun sighed.

His master looked affronted. "I've done nothing. She's the one being unreasonable," he said, and added in a purposely raised voice so Sakura could here. "I only said I would be _willing _to get married, I wasn't suggesting we go register right now!"

"I heard you the first time!" Sakura's disembodied voice snarled back.

"I wasn't talking to you!" Kakashi snapped at her.

"You better not be talking to dead people again! Which is, by the way, reason number two hundred and eighty on the list of reasons why I would never marry you in a million fucking years!"

"Don't swear in front of the baby!"

"Fuck you!"

Pakkun was impressed, but Kakashi was not. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then looked at his dog with a pained look. "Could you come back later?"

Noticing the man had seemingly forgotten all about Pakkun's little indiscretion, Pakkun was all too happy to shoot off before he remembered. "Alright," he said before he went. "But you're probably safer while she's in there, Kakashi. If she does come out, don't expose any of your soft bits to her. That's the first place females go for when they're angry."

"Right…"

* * *

Perhaps he wasn't talking to himself this time, Sakura thought, as she pressed her ear against the door. That sounded like Pakkun's voice speaking, but soon it was followed by the soft pop of a de-summoning, and suddenly all was very quiet. Sakura didn't move. She couldn't hear anything… but did that mean Kakashi was gone too?

"Sakura." His voice came from just the other side of the door again, but his tone was softer and less irritated than before. "Please open the door. You're being silly."

Sakura was in fact not being silly at all. She was sick of Kakashi seeing her cry, and in here she could do that freely as long as her voice held steady and strong, refusing to give away the fact that her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet and salty.

"Can't a girl take a piss without someone trying to knock the door down?" she responded obtusely. "Go _away,_ Kakashi."

"Look, I can take 'no' for answer. You don't want to marry me. _I get it_." he sighed against the door panel. "Now unlock the door. I won't say anything about it again. I'm certainly not planning to knock you out with my club and drag you to the altar by your hair."

"You don't get it!" Sakura rebuked. "You don't get it at all! You _never_ should have said that!"

"Does the thought of marrying me offend you that much?" He sounded hurt, but if he was going to play chicken with a guilt trip, he deserved what he got.

"_Yes,_" she said emphatically. "How can it not? For a start, you're already marrying someone else! Secondly, you would never dream of asking me to marry you if I wasn't pregnant! Thirdly, why the hell would I marry a guy who effectively imprisoned me against my will? You know that syndrome where victims identify with their captors and start to care for them?"

"Yes…?"

"_I don't have that!_"

There was a long silence on the other side of the door, and Sakura wondered if she'd hurt his feelings, and whether or not she cared if she had.

"What makes you think I'm already getting married?" he asked quietly.

"You have a fiancée!" she said in exasperation. "I am a spy, you know. How could you think I wouldn't find that out?"

"It's not serious," he replied, as if talking about some kind of injury.

"Then you're the only one who doesn't seem to take it seriously!" she protested. "Have you slept with her?"

It took Kakashi a while to find his voice. "What has that got to do with anything?" he demanded.

"If you've had sex with her, you've consummated the engagement," Sakura pointed out to him angrily. "If you haven't, then I might be able to believe you when you say it's not serious. So have you?"

"Maybe. A few times. But not lately, and definitely not since I went with you."

"You don't have to reassure me," she spluttered. "I'm _not_ jealous. I'm actually more concerned about her, since _she's_ the one who's being cheated on here."

"And you don't think she ever cheated on me? God, she's probably slept with more women than I'll ever sleep with."

Sakura's head came up. "Wait, what?"

"Reika may have been good fun when I was twenty-three, but I never intended to marry a girl who never made any bones about the fact she only wanted me for my position in the clan. I told her as much a few weeks ago too. Happy?"

Actually, she _was _pretty satisfied. Though she'd never thought there was much love lost between them after witnessing their sparse interactions, it hadn't been pleasant to think there were other women being strung around by Kakashi.

"Are you going to come out and face me properly now?" he asked her.

Sakura looked in the mirror and saw her face was virtually dry. She took a moment to rub away the last of the lingering moisture before calmly standing to unhook the catch on the bathroom lock. "That was only reason number one," she told him when she pulled the door open. "I made a mistake months ago that led to an unwanted baby, and I'm not going to let that trap me in a loveless marriage with you too."

"I had to offer," he said with a shrug.

"Yeah, and the way you did it made it sound like you'd _ruined_ me or something," she told him stiffly.

"Well, that's _not _what I meant. Right now all you seem to have is the option of adoption, or struggling as a homeless, single mother. I just wanted you to know that I would support you if you chose the latter," he tried to reason. "But you don't have to marry me to have my support."

Sakura sat down on the end of the bed, looking up at him quietly. "You'd really do that?" she asked tentatively.

"Of course I would." He sounded surprised that she'd ever doubt that. "I know I'm not exactly wealthy, but I'd try to match your contributions as much as possible. It's only fair, right?"

"Then people would know it was yours," she pointed out dubiously. "It's one thing to be a single mother – half the kunoichi in Konoha are widows. It's another to have the child of the village's most famous jonin and _not_ be his wife."

"Then no one has to know I'm the father. That's up to you. We can just tell people I'm supporting you as a friend."

"What if it's obvious? What if he looks like you?"

"Then… dye his hair? I don't know." He sighed. "What do you want me to do?"

"Why can't _you_ tell me what _you_ want to do?" she shot back. "Why does everything have to be my decision? I don't know if you want me to keep this baby or adopt or _what_! Just be straight with me and tell me what _you_ want."

He hesitated, standing before her with his arms crossed and his mask drawn up. He wasn't an expressive man, but that didn't mean he held none of the same anxieties and insecurities as herself.

"I want whatever makes you happy," he replied simply.

Sakura thumped the bed with her fists. "That's not an answer! Adoption or no adoption: which is it? What would make _you_ happier?"

He looked about vacantly, as if looking for the answer in the walls of their room. "I don't know," he said. "I just know I won't be happy if you're unhappy… and I think adoption will make you unhappy. It'll make you unhappy for a long time."

Sakura turned her eyes down to her knees. He had only answered her question in the vaguest of terms, making it about _her_ happiness than his own desires. Did he really not care to weigh in on the decision to send his own child away to live in a foreign country, never to be seen again? If he cared so little, exactly how happy _could_ she be if they went home and tried to form some semblance of a family?

She closed her eyes and willed back the sting of tears. "If we go back, you'd support me? You'd baby-sit and you'd give financial aid?"

"Yes," he said simply.

"You'd feed him? Change his diapers? Teach him how to walk and hold a kunai?"

"Anything you needed."

_Would you even love him?_ she wanted to ask, but she feared he'd give the same detached answer. '_If you want me to', _he'd probably say, as cold as a machine. Then she opened her eyes. "I guess that would mean keeping quiet about your Syndicate connections, huh?" she said softly. "Can't get child support off a man who's dead or in prison."

"Yes. There is that," he said awkwardly.

Hell… was this all just some spectacular manipulation to guarantee her silence? Was his promise of support nothing but blackmail?

"I'll think about it," she said tiredly, wondering why all her 'choices' felt like she was being asked to choose which pit she'd like to fall into; the one filled with tigers, the one with spikes, or the one with an assortment of venomous snakes.

Kakashi probably didn't intend to come off so callous. When she looked at him she thought there was a genuine concern for her there in his face, and she told herself it shouldn't be that surprising he wasn't particularly paternal. When he'd been their guardian-slash-teacher eight years ago, he'd never been much of a father figure the way Sakura thought _other_ teachers were to their students. Hinata always spoke of Kurenai like a favourite aunt, and Kurenai had always looked out for her when her real family hadn't. Then there was Ino and her team who had doted on Asuma like a second father, often spending more time doing 'family' activities with him and the team than their original dads.

Meanwhile, she and Naruto had always been a little wary of Kakashi – like he was some kind of distant cousin who'd been dragged over to spend the holidays with them but would much rather be elsewhere. Fond as they had all become of each other, there was no mistake that Kakashi lacked a warm, affectionate ability to relate to children. She wondered if it was because he himself had lacked a childhood. How could someone who'd been embroiled in running messages across the frontlines at the age of six ever truly have been a child?

_You're probably being too paranoid,_ she warned herself. Maybe Kakashi had no ulterior motive to offering her his support. Maybe he really had offered for no other reason than his desire to help her.

Sakura sighed aloud.

"What's the matter?" Kakashi asked, attentive as ever. "Do you want me to finish rubbing your feet?"

She blinked at him in surprise for a moment, before a faint smile ghosted over her lips.

No. There really was nothing disingenuous about his kindness.

"Thank you..." she murmured.

"It's not a problem. Your feet are a joy to rub." He crouched and plucked one of them onto his knee to begin kneading the arch of her foot again.

She blushed faintly and ducked her head. "No... I meant, thank you for offering to marry me. It was stupid, but I know you meant well and I'm not, you know... ungrateful..."

His hands paused and he looked up at her curiously. She saw an echoing smile of uncertain pleasure, and right then she felt as if his hands were warming more than just her foot.

* * *

"And?"

"And…that's it," Pakkun finished. "If you don't go back within the week, she's sending people after you."

"Did you explain that I'm not leaving Sakura on her own?" Kakashi asked testily.

"Yes, and she explained you'd be dragged back by force and someone would take over from you. It seems like something's going on with Iwa and she wants you back as promised. I got a weird vibe in that office."

"She wouldn't be this inflexible if it was truly peacetime," Kakashi agreed. "If Iwa's making noises again, then Karasu is presumably just as glib with the new Tsuchikage as the old one. Shit. She can't expect me to leave Sakura like this…"

Pakkun paused to studiously sniff at the base of a lamppost. "Maybe if you told her you were the father? She might understand you wanting to stay with her then."

"Yes, she'd understand," Kakashi sighed. "But it wouldn't stop her from murdering me and hanging my bones out to dry above the village gates as a warning to other men who might impregnate her staff."

"Hm."

Kakashi looked back over his shoulder. Sakura was still standing at the fruit market stall, haggling over the price of a bag of star fruits. She was getting a good deal, by the looks of things, as the man behind the stall found her charming enough that he seemed to be giving her a lot of freebies. "Expecting ladies need their vitamins," he heard the man saying.

"You're so sweet," Sakura told him, and the fruit seller looked downright bashful.

Ever since he'd cancelled that appointment to interview the next prospective couple, she'd been awfully cheerful. Some things in this world were obvious, and Haruno Sakura was one of them.

When she paid for her fruit and turned to look for Kakashi, her smile widened when it landed on him. "Look what I've got," she said in a sing-song tone as she toddled over to him. "Dragon fruit!"

"Looks nothing like a dragon," he commented.

"I thought so too, but he assures me its tasty anyway. But he gave me so much, you'll have to help me eat it all."

"Are there any sausages?" Pakkun wondered.

"Kakashi, get some sausages for your dog," Sakura told him.

"Have you seen him lately? He's practically a sausage himself."

They both looked down at Pakkun, and the little pug discreetly sucked in his stomach. "My thyroid is acting up," he clarified.

Kakashi scowled at Sakura. "Stop teaching him medical terms, and don't buy him anymore junk food."

"Oh, you're blaming _me_ for his weight problem?" Fist met hip and despite the rotund belly – or perhaps because of it – she was quite imposing.

"I've seen your cat," he pointed out.

"This is _your_ dog," she said, ignoring his response. "If you want to slim him down, stop making him guard me. I'm not going anywhere, with or without him, so why bother anymore? I'll only keep feeding him till he pops if you insist on shackling the poor thing to my heel _all the time_."

"Hey…" Pakkun whined.

"Don't blame me, blame your human and his neurotic control issues," she said blithely. Her chin was up and her eyes met his defiantly, daring him to just brush her off.

"It's for your own safety," he tried to tell her.

"I still have your scroll, remember?" she said. "If you're not here and something goes down, I'll use it. It's not like it has an expiratory date, right? At the very least he doesn't need to dog me when _you're_ here."

"Three's a crowd, Kakashi," Pakkun injected drolly.

Sakura looked down at him contritely. "I like your company, Pakkun, but while Kakashi keeps you around, I still feel like I'm a prisoner. I mean you're still using that chakra tag on me, aren't you? Do you ever plan to take that off?"

Kakashi rubbed his cheek. "Well, I could take it off now, but that would mean hoisting your dress up in front of all these lovely people. I'm sure they'd enjoy the view."

Sakura clamped her fingers down on her skirt, as if a sudden gust of wind might do just that, but her eyes had widened in something other than annoyance. "Are you saying you'll take it off?"

"Not here," he reiterated. "But later, sure. When we get back to the hotel room, I'll take it off."

Sakura seemed speechless. Her eyes darted over his masked face, as if looking for a crack of dishonesty to show through the fabric, but gradually her face relaxed into a tentative smile. It was as innocent and unjaded as the ones she'd given him before the mission to Jonan. "Thank you," she said, and meant it.

"Pakkun, go play with the pack for a while. I'll summon you if I need you," he told him.

"Sure." The dog whipped away on the breeze and left them alone.

Kakashi offered Sakura his arm, and after only a brief pause of hesitation and surprise, she looped her hand round his elbow. It was almost as if they were a real couple, he thought as they made their way unhurried through the busy market streets. Anyone looking at them would think they were in love, or maybe even married, and happily expecting their first bundle of joy.

He found he didn't particularly mind that image.

"Oh," she suddenly said, drawing them both to a stop outside a newsagents. "I want to get a new book – I've nearly finished the last one."

"You read too fast," he sighed.

"Says the man whose been on the same book for the last five years," she retorted. "I'll be right back, don't go anywhere." And she slipped into the shop, leaving him on the street.

Kakashi situated himself against a wall, out of the way of the crowds, and let his attention wander. The air was full of market-day haggling and chatter. In the distance he could see the fruit seller, driving much harder bargains for the customers after Sakura, while nearby a group of children were batting a beach ball between them with their feet. It rolled over to Kakashi accidentally once, and the children froze, too nervous to approach, making him wonder if he looked like one of those grumpy people who confiscated children's toys and popped their inflatables.

They seemed quite relieved when all he did was knock it back to them.

He looked back at the newsagents, but Sakura was still inside. She had a habit of loosing track of the time when she was around books, so he decided to give her another ten minutes before he fought his way inside to rescue her.

An argument had started up on the opposite side of the street. Kakashi didn't take any notice at first, but it was gradually growing louder until everyone in the vicinity was fully informed that Mister A had bought and paid for a fish this morning to pick up later, and Mister B had already sold it to someone else.

Mister A shoved Mister B. The children with the beach ball had stopped their game to gawp, and everyone else was suddenly giving the two men a wide berth. Mister B shoved Mister A back, and suddenly the latter was turning red with rage – until Kakashi cut in between them.

"Give him his money back," he said to the fishmonger.

"I told him it would be gone if he wasn't back by two, how is that my problem?" the man protested.

"Give him his money back before he hits you," Kakashi said patiently. "It's not a big deal. He shouldn't have to pay for a fish he didn't receive, and it's not worth a broken nose, right?"

Perhaps the fishmonger thought Kakashi was the one threatening to break his nose. Either way, he reached into his overalls and grudgingly counted out some change. He handed it to Kakashi, who in turn handed it to the mistreated customer, and then he clapped both surly men on the shoulder. "See? All friends here. Now we can go back to our lives…"

The two men drifted away, not at all appreciative of the fact that Kakashi had saved them both a lot of unnecessary trouble, and so he sighed and looked back at the newsagents.

Sakura was standing near the exit, looking at him with an inquisitive expression on her face. He just shook his head at her, and was about to walk back across the street to her when his gaze was drawn idly to the tall newspaper stand beside her.

He froze.

Bold black words leapt out at him. _Iwa forces return to border. Konoha within days of surrender?_

And that was when he knew for certain… whatever Karasu had gone to Iwa to do, he'd succeeded. Sakura was approaching him with a peculiar expression. "You ok?" she asked, unaware of the cold panic that was gripping him. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Again."

"It's nothing," he said.

"Sure?" She shrugged. "Oh, hey, should we get a paper? Do you have any preference-"

She was turning to look back towards the newsagents shop – Kakashi's hand snapped out and caught her wrist. "No," he blurted quickly. "I… I think we already have one back at the hotel."

"We do?" Sakura frowned in confusion, trying to remember. "If you say so."

She didn't seem to really care about it, but as they walked back they walked in silence. Maybe his tone had rattled her. If she hadn't seen the headlines, of course his abrupt answer would have sounded completely unreasonable, but he _couldn't _let her see them. If she had any idea that their plan had failed and Karasu was back in bed with Iwa, it would mean returning to distrust and bitterness and fear.

Kakashi didn't want to go back to that. Not now. Not when Sakura believed in him and smiled for him and was even considering going back to Konoha with him and their child.

But what did it all matter anyway? He couldn't keep her in the dark forever, even if he wanted nothing more than to hide her away from all thoughts of war and betrayal and keep those lines of worry from her beautiful face. She was a kunoichi, not a possession. He couldn't keep her to himself forever. He couldn't make her love him.

With a pained sigh he slumped against the wall of the elevator. It wasn't much, considering he felt like sinking to his knees and tearing his hair out, but it was enough to make Sakura look at him in concern. She touched his elbow. "Are you really alright?" she asked.

He shook his head, but he couldn't explain. He couldn't tell her that they'd failed. He couldn't accept that doing so might give her a reason to betray him.

In the hotel room she sat him down in the bed and peered into his face. "You don't look well," she commented. "You didn't eat something off the street, did you?"

"After you bought all those lovely fruits?" he joked weakly.

"I know. Why don't I cut you up some dragon fruit? When I feel peaked, having some soft fruit always makes me feel better."

Fine. He nodded, staring bleakly out the window as she carried her bag of fruit over to the sideboard. The soft _tap, tap_ of her knife meeting the counter filled the otherwise quiet room, and he wondered where she'd gotten the knife from, or if she'd had it with her since they'd left the estate. If she'd always had it, he figured he should be thankful that he hadn't woken up with it buried in his back at any point.

He heard her opening a drawer, and then she was sitting beside him, holding out a plate of sliced dragon fruit for him. He looked down at the speckled white flesh and realised he wasn't particularly hungry. "Don't look at it like that," she scolded. "It's nice."

He pulled down his mask and picked up a slice. When he bit into it a horrible bitterness flooded his mouth and he fought the urge to spit it right back out on the plate. Only Sakura's concerned expression made him force it down with a fake smile. "Mm," he said, as if he liked it. "Very nice."

"Good," she said cheerfully. "If you like it so much, I'll let you have the rest."

He'd walked into that one, but he was shackled to obey. Chewing mechanically, he wondered at the taste. He'd never eaten this 'dragon fruit' before, but it tasted oddly familiar. A texture of kiwi… a hint of watermelon… funny thing was, he _liked_ those other fruits.

Sakura looked pleased when he managed to finish off the whole plate and immediately offered to make some more. "No, thanks," he said quickly. "I'm pretty full."

She smiled and sat down on the window seat opposite him, and that's when he noticed how expectantly she was watching him. "What?" he asked.

"Um," she hedged, twisting her fingers in her lap. "While we were out you said… you promised that you'd remove the chakra tag."

Ah. He had hadn't he? Problem was, he didn't want to anymore. "I thought my name looked rather good on your ass," he replied loftily.

The smile was fading from her face. She was clearly thinking it had been nothing but an empty promise to get her to shut up, and he realised dully that he couldn't do that to her. "I'm joking," he murmured. "Come here and I'll take it off."

Relieved, she crossed back over to sit on the bed beside him.

"Um… but I wasn't joking about you needing to lift your dress," he told her awkwardly. "Sorry."

She stiffened. "No looking."

"I have to look."

Sakura's tongue clicked in annoyance and a faint blush dusted her cheeks. "Alright," she grumbled, tugging the material of her summer dress up over her hip as she leaned slightly to her right to present him with her posterior.

While she stared stoically at the wall, he gingerly reached out and peeled the hem of her underwear down just enough to expose the black characters of his name that were still printed exactly where he'd left them. It did look quite nice there.

"I could always tattoo your name on my ass. Fair's fair," he offered, trying not to admire the soft, enticing curves of her hips and thighs. This really had been easier when she was unconscious, because then he hadn't been too tempted to explore due to feeling like a sleazy molester, which he probably was anyway. But here she was, awake and aware, and she was the one who had lifted her skirts to show him her ass and under other circumstances that would be a direct invitation to enjoy himself.

"Just get on with it and stop staring!" she hissed.

"I don't know why you're embarrassed," he said. "You have a very nice-."

"Kakashi!" she pleaded.

He sighed and pressed his hand over her warm flesh and made the appropriate hand seal. After a moment Sakura gasped and twitched like she'd been pinched – and managed to do it in the most unintentionally erotic way he'd ever seen - and when Kakashi pulled his hand away the name that had been on her palm was now on his hand, reversed like an ink print. He shook it, and after a moment the characters faded until there was nothing.

He'd grown so used to feeling her and knowing her every move for so long that to suddenly find himself sitting next to her, but not feeling a chakra connection to her… it was like losing one of his senses.

"Is it gone?" Sakura asked, trying to look down at her bare hip, only she wasn't as flexible as she used to be.

"It's gone."

She had to go check in the mirror before she believed him. She dropped her dress and looked back at him with a smile. "Thanks, Kakashi, I mean it," she said. "It feels like you really trust me."

He tried to smile back, but his facial muscles weren't working. His stomach rolled with worry and even his brain felt like it'd been pushed into a washing machine and was going round and round and… and he was actually dizzy. Kakashi put a hand to his head.

"You know, Kakashi, I've been thinking about what you said," Sakura said. She was sitting beside him again. "About just going home? No adoption?"

"Mm," he grunted.

"Would you really not care whether the baby stayed here or came with us?"

"Of course I care," he responded, trying to take a deep breath to chase off the queasy feeling.

"You said you care about _me_ and _my _feelings. You never said you cared about what happened to the baby. Would you prefer if we put it up for adoption? That way you don't have to pay for it. You don't have to look after it either."

He frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I guess… I don't much like the thought of never seeing him. I've never wanted kids. I _don't_ want kids. But I don't want you to think I'm the kind of guy who just throws away his responsibilities and wants nothing to do with them."

"Are you that kind of guy?" she asked softly.

"I don't know. I've never had kids before, so how am I supposed to know what kind of father I'd be? Mostly when I think about this baby I just feel… lost," he admitted. "Scared."

She sighed and touched his shoulder. "Join the club."

"I just want you to be happy."

Sakura's smile always seemed to brighten the room. "I know," she said. "You're doing your best. I get that. But if we go back, won't there be Syndicate operatives in Konoha? If a pregnant maid from the Zuru estate goes missing with you and you return home with your conspicuously pregnant teammate, they might put two and two together. Karasu might find out you've been covering for me all the time you were there."

"I doubt it."

"Well… you don't know how many operatives he has there, do you? You don't know who they are."

He scoffed. The queasiness was fading, but it was being replaced with a certain light-headedness. Was he really having a panic attack or was he just dying? "Of course, I know," he said. "There's six. Or five now, since I killed Sable when she tried to betray me, and she was the only one with any amount of brains. The rest aren't even related to the clan, they're just old contacts, and they can be bought off. Or threatened. Usually threatening works better since I'm not exactly rolling in the same money as Karasu. Two of them are in ANBU… I think one works in a baker's shop. And there's two more who used to work with Sable in the administrative office."

"I know people in ANBU and the administrative office… I hope I don't know them?"

"Well, do you know Hiroe, Abe? What about Dazai Naoya, Shusui, or Isozaki? Do you know those people? Have you told them top secret information?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I've met them," she said slowly.

"Then you probably never will. Konoha's a big place, and there's plenty of pregnant women… no one's going to bother reporting you to Karasu."

"I see."

Sakura said nothing as she stood and went into the bathroom. She came back with a glass of water. "You need to hydrate," she said quietly.

"Why?" He didn't feel thirsty.

"I'm a medic, I know these things," she said, smiling down at him.

He drank, and though he did feel a little better, the light-headed sensation was getting worse. "I don't think those fruits agreed with me," he sighed.

"They were within their eat-by date," Sakura told him. "Maybe you stuff yourself with such crap all the time that when you eat real food your body doesn't know what to do with it?"

"My diet's better than yours," he contested. "I'm not the one who wants to order tempura in the middle of the night. That stuff's disgusting."

"I only did that once."

"Yeah, every other night you just wanted cake."

She laughed and poked him in the ribs. "Don't annoy me or I might decide I have a craving for freshly caught man-eating pike. At this hour you'd have to catch them yourself."

The sad thing was, if she really did ask for freshly caught man-eating pike, he would get it for her, even if it did mean jumping naked into the lake. Doing everything humanly possible to keep her happy and comfortable – it was all he could do. And yet it would never make up for the lies and the deceit. "I'm so sorry," he grunted.

"What?" Sakura chirped, hearing only half his conversation with himself.

He sighed. "Do you have _any_ idea how much you deserve better than me?" he asked softly.

"Some," she said, teasing him with a serious tone.

Kakashi glanced sideways at her, and the fading orange light from the window lit her profile as she looked back at him, and not for the first time he was struck by how beautiful she was. "I never did anything to deserve you."

"I'm sure you did something bad enough," she joked, smiling a little uncertainly at him. "Why are you talking like this anyway?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore except for that you're right. I can't stop this war, and I can't fight in it. I'll probably be in a bodybag by the end of the year, but I still haven't decided who will be the one to kill me. I'm not sure I cared before, but now I have people to protect. I can't help you if I die, can I?"

"Kakashi…" Sakura reached up to spread her cool fingers along his warm, almost feverish cheek. "Please don't talk like that. The war's nearly over, isn't it? Since Iwa retreated?"

He shook his head, unable to say it. Unable to explain.

Sakura's other hand caught his cheek, drawing him round to face her. "What is it?"

Her soft eyes bore into his and Kakashi felt like all the muddled guards wrapped around his mind were being stripped away. It wasn't fair that theirs had never been, and could never _be_ a normal relationship. The grief hit him sharply. He squeezed her hand and searched her face. "Let's stay here. Together. No Konoha, no Syndicate, just us."

She gazed at him blankly before her eyes crinkled in amusement. "That's just silly. What are you talking about?"

"I don't want to go back to Konoha," he said, reaching stroke his hand through her peach hair. "I don't want to lose you."

The smile slowly left her face in bemusement. "You won't lose me," she said quietly. But she didn't sound so sure.

"You've slipped out of my reach so many times because of this war. Why can't we just be happy with each other?"

Her eyes lowered with her hands. "We messed up, Kakashi. I got pregnant and you're protecting the enemy. It's not something we can just _ignore _and work through…"

"If things had been different do you think we'd have had a chance?" he asked her, watching her gently parted lips that would give the answer.

"I-I don't know," she stammered uncertainly. "Things aren't different."

He sighed heavily, his whole body feeling like dead weight. "I wish they were."

"I wish they were too." She looked at him, and they'd mutually grown so close that their noses were almost touching. Neither wanted to draw back. "And I wish… we could stay here together too. Just us. But it's not realistic, Kaka-"

He interrupted her with a kiss.

Sakura froze, initially trying to push him away, but that resistance faded so quickly it barely registered for either of them. He tasted sweetness, and warmth, and wetness, and it was infinitely better than that awful dragon fruit. It was the same way she'd tasted all those months ago in the little inn where this mess had all began, and he'd forgotten how electrifying it felt to have her soft lips slide against his and feel their breath mingle. Her response was shy but he treasured that it was there at all.

Sakura suddenly leaned back, smiling with self-consciousness. "I don't think so," she whispered. "That kind of thing is what got us in this mess to begin with."

"The harm's already been done, don't you think?"

She seemed uncertain, but she didn't pull away when he leant down to press his lips to her cheeks and her brow. He covered her face in small, faint kisses, drinking in all her beauty that sometimes the rest of the world missed. Every inch of her was worth loving, until finally she caught his head and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing with more greed and hunger than he ever remembered. Tiny, almost desperate little sounds escaped her lips between each heavy kiss.

Their weight didn't hold them, and they slowly sank to the bed. He wanted to lie on top of her and press her into the soft mattress and get lost in her gentle body all over again, but the new dynamics of that gentle body stymied him a little. When his hand paused on the bump of her belly, Sakura looked down.

"Is it putting you off?" she asked worriedly. "I'm not the same as I was…"

He doubted very much could put him off Sakura. Right now he was drunk off her, feeling heavier every moment with it and dizzy with the need to kiss her. "No. You're sexier. Every night at the estate when everyone else thought I was fucking you, I wished it was true. I would have spent every minute in bed with you if you'd wanted me."

She licked her lips nervously. "I want you, but…"

"But?" He sleepily nuzzled the sensitive skin beneath her ear.

"But we _shouldn't_," she pleaded.

Protests were far easier to chase away with kisses. In between them she may have talked sense, but with his mouth against hers all she could do was twist her fingers longingly in his sleeves and meet his tongue with her own. When he kissed and suckled her neck she just shivered and moaned and hung closer. There was no way this attraction and affection was one sided, though for too long it had felt that way. He'd never stopped caring about her. Never stopped wanting. Perhaps it had been the same for her too?

He reached for the hem of her dress to start drawing it up, wanting to feel more of her skin and touch her wherever he could – along her thighs, or her hips, or her back, or between her legs – anywhere to simulate them both and chase away the aching stress and fatigue that threatened to swallow him. He was worried that at any moment she'd regain sanity and stop him, and not for a second did he want to give her that chance.

But the moment his hand cupped her through her panties, she reacted sharply and twisted her head away from his. "No – we can't do this," she said, knees tightly together as she tried to remove his hand. "There's no possible way-"

"We've already done this," he told her thickly. "We messed up, so let's make it right this time. I want to show you what it could be like between us."

He waited, but when she gave no further reaction he gently began to massage her, pressing hard fingers into her softness in a slow, assured rhythm. She remained tense for several seconds, until the strokes soothed her like a feral cat and her legs relaxed. There was still uncertainty her rigid body, but she tentatively accepted the pleasure as if entranced by it. Sighs left her lips and her eyes slid closed, and more quickly than she would probably like to admit, her hips were moving in time to his hand.

"I can feel how wet you are," he breathed against her ear, breathing in her calming scent. "You want me inside you."

Her eyes slid open to regard him with an unreadable expression. There was desire there, yes, but something else too. "It's no good, Kakashi, we can't…"

"Yes, we can," he coaxed.

"No," she returned, "we can't. _You_ can't. Kakashi, you're not…"

Unable to articulate precisely what she meant, her hand reached out and cupped _him_ instead. Ordinarily such forwardness would have been awfully kinky, but not right now, when all it did was make it perfectly clear to both of them that he was as hard as an overcooked noodle.

"You have to give him time," Kakashi grunted, but even he knew it was no good. He wanted her as always but for the first time his body was indifferent. This had never happened to him before… at least not when he wasn't off-his-face drunk. He gave himself a few frustrated tugs.

Whether he was too tired or too stressed, there was no life down there.

"I'm sorry," he sighed to Sakura, sagging to the bed wearily.

She tried to smile, but it was wobbly. There was no doubt that in his mind that she was on the verge of tears. Did she think she wasn't enough to arouse him? Of all times, why did his body have to fail him _now_? "It's not you," he told her. "It's me. It happens to guys sometimes…"

"It's not that," she sniffed, and when she blinked a tear ran from the corner of her eye. Shame was written all over her face.

"Sakura?" he frowned in confusion, dabbing her wet cheeks with his thumb. "What's wrong?"

"I have to be careful. It's so easy to let the people you love walk all over you and get away with murder, because…" She ran a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry, Kakashi."

"Why?" He still didn't understand why she was crying.

She sat up slowly. "I know you only think you're doing what's best," she whispered, "but I saw the headlines. I know we failed, and I know you were going to hide it from me. I understand, I really do… that you're being pulled in two different directions by your split loyalties and you can't – _won't – _turn your back on either. So I'm taking the choice out of your hands. You and I have different priorities, and I can't let you do this to me again. Not to me, not to Konoha. I _can't_ help you hurt _my_ family for the sake of yours."

"Sakura, wait," he said heavily, reaching for her. She slipped out of his reach easily and his hand thudded to the bed like lead. "I don't understand…"

"I told you," she said quietly, reaching down to pick up her bag from the corner of the room. "I'm taking the choice out of your hands. You've told me what I needed to know to break the Syndicate's network in Konoha. The serum will wear off in a few hours and you won't remember this, just like with Karasu."

His breath escaped him in a rush. It was harder to see her, and when he tried to sit up he felt like he was swimming through cement. "Oh, Sakura, don't…" he whispered. "Please don't…"

He tried to stand. His legs failed him instantly and he fell, twisted in bed linen but too numb to sense the impact. Then Sakura was beside him, touching his forehead with a hand he could barely feel. "I didn't want this to happen," he thought he heard her say, and it seemed to be raining on his face. "It's your fault. You gave me no choice."

Kakashi heard the door swing shut, but he didn't connect it to her leaving. He whispered her name, trying to tell her he didn't mind and he didn't care, just as long as she came back. _Please_ come back.

He sunk into darkness alone.

* * *

"Why's the lady crying?"

"Shh, sweetheart. It's rude to stare."

Sakura no longer cared what others around her thought of the weeping, heavily pregnant girl in the lift with them. It seemed that no matter how many times she dried her eyes, the tears just kept coming, dripping steadily down her cheeks and onto her dress until she hardly took any notice anymore.

Hormones, she told herself. Except… not really.

The great lift cranked and clicked before it finally slowed and stopped at the lowest level of the three tiered village. She walked through the filthy intestines of Ame, breaking away from the rest of the sparse crowds to slip down gaping runways where nothing stirred but machinery. She'd come for one reason only – the strong stain of ammonia in the air. It was to the nose was a smoke screen was to the eyes. Kakashi could try to track her, but even with his dogs would struggle through this unpleasant chemical smog.

Her flat heels clipped softly against the metal grating as she walked, and every time she sniffed and sighed, it echoed around her like a cathedral. This really was a hellish place. She would be glad to leave, once she found a boat to take her across the lake. If they disembarked from anywhere, it would be from down here.

But as she walked she became uncomfortably aware of a familiar prickle of discomfort along the back of her neck. She knew this feeling. She'd felt it before when she'd returned to the hotel room alone a few days ago. Now it was stronger. Stronger all the more for the fact that she could hear footsteps echoing hers some distance behind her.

Sakura stopped dead and turned.

And there stood Reika on the deserted runway, twirling a ninjato between her fingers like a baton.

"Jeez, this place stinks. I bet you feel right at home, huh? Well, since I've finally got you away from Kakashi, let's make this quick and clean, ok? This kimono is new, so no blood splatters, bitch."

* * *

Next Chapter: _On the Third Level_


	34. On the Third Level

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Three: On the Third Level

* * *

_She's just someone's favourite daughter,_

_Spoilt and ugly as she willingly slaughters,_

_Friends and enemies, they're all the same._

* * *

Kakashi woke with a groan and a yawn… on his back and on the floor. It didn't occur to him for several seconds that this was at all strange, until his elbow his the edge of the bed frame and he realised the room was not bright as it usually was in the morning. One look at the window told him dawn was still about an hour away from breaking.

"Sakura, did I fall out bed?" he grunted, rubbing his aching head. Almost immediately he realised how dry his mouth was, and he reached for the half drunken cup of water on the nightstand. It didn't go far to quenching his desperate thirst, but that was when he looked over at the bed and realised it was empty. The mound of pillows that Sakura usually built around her as a fort at night were neatly piled against the headboard, untouched. The sheets were disturbed – some of them were even caught under him… but where was Sakura?

"You in the bathroom?" he called hoarsely, climbing to his feet unsteadily. "Sakura?"

There was no reply when he hammered his fist on the door. "If you don't answer, I'm coming in," he warned. In his mind he had worrying visions of her passed out on the floor, unable to answer. He seized the handle, expecting it to be locked…

The door swung open to reveal a dark, vacant bathroom. No little heaps of Sakura could be seen anywhere.

Kakashi stepped back, stunned, looking around the hotel room. Fear was mounting, but he stuffed it back down deep inside, unwilling to face the prospect that something terrible had happened. He searched his memory, trying to remember how it was that he'd come to wake up on the floor, alone, with no sign that Sakura had slept in her bed. Had they been attacked? Had he been knocked out? Had Sakura been taken?

He remembered walking through the market with her… buying fruit… breaking up a fight between two old men… seeing his worst fears confirmed in a black and white headline outside a stationary shop. Things got fuzzy after that. They'd definitely returned here together – and there was the bag of fruit still sitting on the sideboard, still waiting to be unpacked. Sakura had chopped up a spiky red thing called a dragon fruit and fed it to him… he still tasted the horrible bitterness in his mouth.

She'd convinced him to take the chakra tag off her. Hell, _why_ had he let her convince him? Of all times, why now?

Of course… perhaps it wasn't a coincidence she'd gone missing. Where was her bag? Where were her clothes? He walked around the room, jerking open drawers that had once held Sakura's belongings. While there were a few shirts and dresses left, all her underwear was gone, as were her shoes. No kidnapper stopped to collect their victim's panties. Sakura had _packed_ and _left_.

Kakashi sat heavily on the bed, hands pressed against his pounding temples.

_Why couldn't he remember?_

* * *

"… and you know, that's not much to ask is it? A little attentiveness? A little affection? We _are_ supposed to be getting married, so it's not, like, _unreasonable_. Is it?"

"No, not at all."

"But all he cares about is _himself_ and _his work_ and _Karasu._ God! He and Karasu are practically joined at the cock. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were fucking. Assholes! Both of them!"

"Complete bastards."

"I know, right?! They're so gay for each other. I've known Kakashi since he was fifteen – one time I gave him head, he called out a _man's_ name. Awkward! He wouldn't admit it, but I've seen how some men look at him, and he looks back. I don't know about Karasu… I've never seen him with a woman. I tried to get him into bed ten years ago, but he was oblivious. He _must _be gay."

"Definitely."

Reika tossed her glossy white locks over her shoulder and bounced the flat of her blade against her thigh as she appraised Sakura. "You're not so bad," she said. "It's really nothing personal… except it is, and you're my love rival. It's not like any self-respecting female can just take it lying down. I have to do something, right?"

"Right," Sakura nodded, looking down ever the edge of the pier at a drop of around twenty feet. Beneath them was the lake, half shadowed by the platform they stood on, and Sakura could swear she could see things moving down there under the water. _Big_ things. "Is this really how you want to do this though?"

"Well, I was planning to just cut your head off," Reika mused. "Give Kakashi a good scare, you know? Something to think about? But… I don't know. Cutting up pregnant women is not really my thing."

"I understand," Sakura said sympathetically.

"This way, the sharks do it for me," Reika said cheerfully. "My conscience is clear."

"They're man-eating pike, actually," Sakura corrected.

"Seriously?" Reika peeped curiously over the edge. "Let's hope they're woman-eating too."

"Fingers crossed," Sakura sighed.

Reika looked amused. "It's nice that you have a sense of humour about it. Some people can be so _depressing _when you put them down."

"That's very inconsiderate," Sakura agreed. "Don't they realise how hard it is for you too?"

"I know! It's not like I enjoy killing people!" Reika twirled a finger through her hair. "Well, not when it's messy and disgusting, I don't. Off a pier into shark – sorry – pike-infested waters is pretty clean, though."

"So you enjoy this?"

"Not really. I wish I didn't have to. I told you, pregnant women aren't really my style. But you _are_ my love rival, so it can't be helped."

"Would it help if I told you I wasn't with Kakashi anymore?" Sakura asked.

Reika bit her painted lip, but her expression didn't change. "I'd think you were trying to wriggle out of this, that's all," she said.

"Why do you think I was crying?" Sakura pointed out. "He kicked me out. He told me to pack my bags and leave, he was sick of me."

Reika's sword drooped. "Men can be so cruel…"

"We're both a victim to this man's fickle lusts," Sakura waxed on. "Can't we call a truce and just go our separate ways? I doubt we'll see each other again. I doubt Kakashi will ever even think of me again."

Reika's face pinched slightly, and she gave a reluctant sigh. "Look, don't take this wrong, but I'm _not_ the same as you," she explained. "I'm an elite kunoichi from one of the oldest, strongest clans in the land – a direct descendant of one the great leaders of the Imperial revolution. You? You're just a maid from nowhere. I'm royalty, you're a peasant. I am 'this man's' fiancé, and you are his whore. I've been with him for nearly twenty years. You've had him three months. Do you understand? You're not my equal, and I'm not going to lower myself to being just another cast-off."

"Alright," Sakura said touchily. "You're better than me. But you don't have to kill me."

"I'd rather I did," Reika said, shrugging. "Kakashi has insulted me by ditching me for a commoner. It's not really about punishing you, it's about punishing him."

"But I told you, he's ditched me too!" Sakura protested. "He won't care if he hears I'm dead!"

"Alright, not a punishment," the other woman said as she stroked her lip thoughtfully. "It can be a _present_. He'll be impressed at the depth of my love for him once he hears I killed his former mistress, he'll remember his obligations to me."

Sakura winced. "You don't really know Kakashi at all, do you?"

"Oi! I know him better than you!" Reika pointed her sword at Sakura. "You may have been polishing his staff for the last few weeks, but that doesn't mean you know him anywhere near as deeply and intimately as I do."

"Fair enough." Sakura wasn't going to argue with the girl holding the sharp sword.

Reika looked up at the sky that was steadily growing lighter and paler. "This has kinda been running on more than I expected. Better get moving." She waggled her ninjato at Sakura. "Step over to the edge, please."

"If you insist," Sakura sighed, tiptoeing closer to the edge of the platform. The waters weren't exactly churning with sharp-toothed fish, but they would probably would be shortly after her body hit the surface.

"One thing before you go," Reika said suddenly. "Were you ever screwing Karasu too?"

"What?" Sakura stared at her as if she was mad.

"There has to be _some_ reason why he was so adamant about not killing you. I mean, he's not that keen on killing kids – or anyone without a good reason, for that matter – but he's been such a killjoy when I mentioned getting rid of you. So _please_ tell me you were fucking him too. Or is it true he's been castrated?"

"I… I wouldn't know," Sakura stammered. "I've never slept with Karasu."

"He fancies you though," Reika drawled. "It's obvious."

"I wouldn't know," Sakura repeated.

"Well, just thought you might like to know. Something to cheer you up before you die."

"That was supposed to cheer me up?"

"I'd like to know if the most powerful crime lord in the land fancied me," Reika mused. "Guess he is sort of scary though. Are you prepared to die now?"

"No," Sakura said honestly.

"In your own time. I'll count to twenty in my head, and if you haven't jumped by then, I'll have to give you hand."

"Thank you."

"_One… two… three…_" Reika whispered. 'In her own head' clearly did not mean to her what it meant to the rest of the world. _"…six… seven… eight…_"

Sakura took a deep breathe and looked down again. Reika's soft counting was like a building charge, and a knot of mild anxiety began winding tighter in her belly with every number. But today was not the day Sakura was going to be fish food. She still had things to do. Babies to birth. Villages to save.

"…_sixteen… seventeen… _come on, I'm nearly there _–eighteen… nineteen… twenty._" Reika shifted her weight. "Courage backfired, huh?"

"Something like that," Sakura said.

"Oh, well, I'll just have to push you." Her hand touched Sakura's back. "On the count of three – one, two, _three_!"

She shoved. Sakura pivoted and grabbed Reika's sword arm. She may have been eight months pregnant and as chakra handicapped as Rock Lee, but that only meant so much to one of the best damn kunoichi in the fire country. Unprepared for her victim's speed and sure-footing, Reika stumbled, finding herself pushing against a resistance that was no longer there, and all that was left to catch her was air… and a twenty foot drop.

For three heart-stopping seconds she wobbled on the edge, stunned. Her eyes jerked to Sakura and reflexively she twisted to swing her blade, only just managing to nick Sakura's hastily withdrawn arm. In the narrowest of openings after the near-miss, Sakura reached in to slam her palm into Reika's face, shoving her the way she'd tried to shoved Sakura.

Reika overbalanced, her arms whipping around so sharply her sword went flying across the grilling.

Then she was gone.

Noting the distance splash below, Sakura picked up the ninjato with a wince and a sigh. Damn… her back hurt, but at least she'd cheated death for another day. She peered over the edge to confirm, and sure enough, there below was a red and white froth of churning water, and what looked like the remains of a nice new kimono escaping the fray.

_So you've just killed Kakashi's fiancée_, she told herself. _Worse things have happened…_

She picked up her pack and slotted her new weapon through the straps, keen to get moving. She didn't feel triumphant or even satisfied by what she'd done. It had been necessitated by self defence, but this made it the second time she'd killed a member of the Hatake clan. Kakashi worried about what Konoha would inflict on his family if they ever found out the truth, but what about _her_? She was the one steadily picking them off.

It was time to leave the scene of the crime. Along this long pier that stretched around the northern edge of Ame's floating mass were dozens of boats, and some early rising fisherman were already up and about, preparing to set off for a day's fishing. A little bit of money might convince someone to ferry her to the shore so she could avoid the bridge where Kakashi and his dogs were bound to check first.

She spotted a sturdy looking barge being loaded with equipment further along the dock and descended the stairs. The two men working there looked up at her as she approached, and she knew this was a father and son, and both deeply tanned from years working under the rain country's sun. "Excuse me," she said politely. "But could I get a ride to the east shore?"

"We're a fishing boat, not a ferry," the older man told her.

"And I have money," she pointed out.

"How much?"

"About… three ryo?"

"For the time it takes to get to the east shore and back, we'd have lost six."

Sakura shifted her stance, uncomfortably tired and sore and short on temper. "How about this then?" she asked, showing them the ninjato she'd picked up. Reika's tastes were fine, because there was no way this blade had cost anything less than a hundred ryo to craft.

"You stole that," the fisherman said bluntly.

"No, I didn't," Sakura lied.

"Yes, you did," he responded. "Off the white-haired woman. We saw you push her in with the pike."

Sakura drummed her fingers against her hip. "So?"

"So, no. Murderers get put to death in this village in horrible ways, as do those who help them. Please just leave."

Apparently she would have to walk much further before she came across any boat that hadn't been in direct view of the high platform where she and Reika had struggled. Sakura gave the two men an annoyed glare, deciding not to bother explaining that she'd only been defending herself from a self-professed love-rival, and climbed back up the steps to continue on her way along the dock. She didn't think they would have much sympathy for her, not when even she was struggling to sympathise with herself. It seemed that there was a trail of corpses building up in her wake. How could she pretend she was any different from Kakashi after hearing he'd killed a woman called 'Sable' for threatening to betray him?

Sakura got all of three hundred yards down the metal walkway before a cramp in her thigh forced her to stop. She needed to sit down, but there were no chairs or benches out here on this dank, dirty bay, and her only option was to perch against one of the warm pipes lining a nearby pillar. She had a feeling it was a sewage pipe. Oh well. It was better than nothing.

"Just give me a minute," she whispered to herself, or perhaps even the baby. He seemed to have wedged himself into an uncomfortable position beneath her ribs, and she spent the next few minutes massaging her belly, trying to ease the pressure. She closed her eyes, wishing for a nice soft bed to make up for the sleep she'd missed out on lately.

Hell, she missed the days when she used to be thin and her centre of gravity was where it should have been. Her life was all about her stamina and her agility and her speed, and back there she'd realised how much she'd lost when she hadn't even been able to fully dodge the blade of the ninjato. Sakura looked at the long thin cut marking the skin above her left elbow. It wasn't crucially deep, however it had bled enough to streak her arm and dress. Automatically she lifted her hand to heal it… then lowered it slowly when she remembered she couldn't.

Sakura set down her pack and began the laborious task of locating her scant few items of first aid. She tossed aside the empty test tubes that had once held the leftover truth serum used on Karasu, half of which she'd been keeping in her underwear drawer in the hotel room till last night. She found some gauze at the bottom of her bag and tied it around her arm to stem the bleeding. It would have to do now that she was a medic-nin in name only and her expertise was limited to whatever tools she had available… which wasn't much.

"It's ok," she said, rubbing her stomach, "when we get home your mother will have a whole hospital at her disposal. Best hospital in all the five nations. That's where you should be born… not out here on this floating landfill, despite what your dad says. I'll find a home for you _myself_. Maybe you'd like Suna? It's always nice and sunny there. Or maybe Kumo? If you don't mind high altitudes."

A lump rose in her throat and her eyes prickled. It was a good thing she was out of tears or they'd be rolling down her face all over again. There was only so much she could blame on hormones, and this time she knew that, really, she had plenty to cry about.

_You can't build a life with a man who won't give you freedom,_ she warned herself, as she'd warned herself every moment since she'd seen his reaction to the headline at the stationary shop. He wanted to help and support her. She didn't doubt that.

She also didn't doubt that he would help and support his family first.

It was hopeless, however she looked at it. They were mixed up in a war, chasing their own interests, fighting each other every step of the way, and no amount of pretending that they could form a happy, stable family together could make it true. She had to get away from Kakashi. She had to get away from this whole mad situation before this baby ended up as just another tool to be used to control her.

The pipe Sakura was sitting on gave a lurch and a shriek like nails on a chalkboard. The noise went right through Sakura, making her leap to her feet as best she could. Behind her the metal tube where she'd been sitting was cracked and dented.

Had her weight done that? She wanted to shout at the treacherous pipe. She wasn't _that_ fat!

But as she stared, the pipe was still cracking and shifting,. One end suddenly popped its joint and swung towards her like a long, clumsy arm. Sakura ducked with a gasp and fell on her hip, but not fast enough to avoid the spray of warm water and froth that gushed from its mouth.

Her suspicion that it was a sewage pipe was more or less confirmed.

Something slammed into the metal grating inches from her leg, and she jerked her head to see this pipe was not the only one that had gained life. The second one had pierced the runway, pinning her by the material of her dress.

"Shit…" she muttered, struggling to stand and gain leverage against the offending pipe when the floor was slick with foul, greasy water. The smell was making her sick, but that was the least of her worries. If she didn't gain the purchase to rip free, the larger pipe that was still lurching around spasmodically would eventually crush her.

"You… bitch…"

Sakura looked up through sodden, dirty hair to see a rather familiar figure limping along the walkway towards her. It seemed the pike had taken a good bite out of her leg and some of the fingers on her left hand were even missing. Understandably, she looked hacked off about it.

"What the hell was that?!" Reika shrieked at her, stopping short of the puddle of sewage. "I was being nice – trying to make it easy for you – and that's how you repay me?! _You push me off?!"_

That sort of outrage didn't warrant a response. Sakura could point out that Reika had intended to push _her_ off for no other reason than because she wanted to get back at her ex, but you couldn't argue with the unreasonable. She remained silent, concentrating instead on trying to pull the skirt of her dress loose.

"I don't know how the hell you got the better of me, but I won't be making the same mistake." Reika made a gesture with her good hand and the flailing pipe froze, still spitting its pollution, but now away from them.

"W-Wait…" Sakura panted, trying to stand.

Reika ignored her and lifted her hands to form the seals of jutsu that could kill instantly. She'd used it on exactly three people in her life, and each time the effect was rather satisfying when the blood of the victim boiled up and exploded through the very pores of the skin. Reika reserved it only for the most deserving people – like people who pushed them into lakes of razor-toothed fish who took irreplaceable bites out of her beautiful body. "Just hurry up and die! _Ketsueki no jutsu!_"

Nothing happened.

The wet woman looked down at her missing fingers in confusion, before uttering a sad, "Oh…"

Sakura renewed her struggles.

"If I have to get my hands dirty, so be it." Reika stepped through the filthy, slippery slush to grab Sakura's fallen pack. With one hand she upturned the contents onto the ground and grabbed her ninjato. "I don't know what you thought you were doing, stealing this," she said sniffily, wiping off some of the sewage on her stained shorts. "Do you even know how to use one of these, or did you think you could fence it for a pretty penny? God, I hate poor people. Now stay still while I kill you."

As she drew closer, Sakura kicked against the pipe to no effect, determined not to just sit there and _die._

"Stay still!" Reika repeated, as if Sakura was a naughty child. "It's easier for _both_ of us that way."

"You've got it all wrong," Sakura told her, shaking her head. "You _really_ don't want to kill me."

"I _really_ do," Reika responded, holding up her mangled hand. "Do you think these will just grow back, huh? I'm _mutilated_ and it's all your fault! I can't let this lie!"

Sakura ignored her vanity. "If you kill me, Kakashi will slaughter you himself! He won't be pleased, he won't be proud, he won't be indifferent! He will _kill_ you."

Reika straightened, an annoyed look on her drenched face. "Hey, you've changed your story," she said suspiciously. "You said he wouldn't care. I think you're lying."

"I _was_ lying!" Sakura ground out. "I've been lying for a very long time. So has Kakashi."

"Urgh! Stop calling him so familiar-like!" Reika barked at her. "Only _I _can call him Kakashi! To you, he's Kakashi-sama!"

"Not to me," Sakura told her steadily. "To me, he's Kakashi-sensei."

Reika just looked outraged. "That makes no sense!" she declared. "What the hell would make him your sensei!"

"Because he's my teacher!" Sakura shouted back. "I'm a kunoichi from Konoha, I studied under Kakashi eight years ago and have been serving with him ever since. We're lovers! This baby is his, not Toshio's! He's aware of that, and if you kill me, you kill his child!"

Reika gaped at her, turning paler than even the blood loss could account for. "You're lying," she whispered. "You're a filthy lying whore who's just trying to plead for her life!"

"I'm not lying!"

"Where's your equipment, kunoichi?!" Reika snapped. "Why haven't you used any jutsu to defend yourself? See! You're nothing but a liar!"

"I'm not!" Sakura pointed to the strewn contents of her bag. "There! There's my scrolls for summoning!"

Reika reluctantly shifted her gaze to the two scrolls lying in the sewage. "That could be anything!" she snarled at Sakura.

"My contract is there, written in blood on those scrolls! If you don't believe me, take a look for yourself."

Reika's gaze inched to the scrolls again, and she shifted restlessness, obviously unable to decide whether to see if Sakura was telling the truth or whether to reject any notion of humouring her lies. Her thoughts might as well have been written on her face for all the fear and confusion that Sakura saw. Fear that Sakura was telling the truth and Kakashi would be extremely displeased with her, and confusion how any of it could be possible. How any woman could have beaten her to the honourable position of being mother to his children.

Keeping her ninjato trained on Sakura, she edged towards the scrolls and stooped down to pick one off the floor. "If this turns out to be your shopping list," she hissed, letting the warning hang.

With surprising dexterity for a hand that had only three fingers, Reika tore the wax seal and snapped the scroll open, letting it roll all the way to the floor. She looked at the contents with feverish eyes, scanning its entire length before looking back at Sakura. "Is this a joke?"

Sakura kept quiet.

"There's nothing on here! It's blank!" she roared, throwing the scroll hard enough at Sakura's face to bruise her nose and make her eyes water. "I can't believe I thought for a second… jeez. This is embarrassing to both of us. Let's just get it over with."

She walked back to Sakura and lifted her blade.

Sakura closed her eyes – then felt only the hot spray of blood as it splashed over her face and chest. She'd never before appreciated how painless death was. How surreal. She looked down at herself, expecting to see deep, gaping wounds… but was momentarily distracted when Reika's body hit the ground with a wet splatter a few feet away.

A man in the uniform of a Cloud village nin stood on the other side of the fallen body, wiping his bloodied sword on his black sleeve. He hadn't totally escaped the blood splatter, judging by bright red specks dotting his otherwise pristine white vest. Then again, he wouldn't notice that.

"Sasuke," she whispered, giving up the fight to free her dress from the pipe.

He wrinkled his nose slightly and breathed through his mouth. "Sakura, you better not have summoned me in a sewer."

* * *

"You sure she went this way?" Kakashi asked his dogs.

"Her trail goes up this avenue, but it doubles back the other way," Shiba told him, sniffing exuberantly between the feet that pounded the pavement around him. "Which do you want us to follow?"

Kakashi hesitated. If Sakura had turned right out of the hotel, that meant she'd headed into the business district and doubled back in the direction of the great lift. He wanted to find her as quickly as possible, but…

"Bisuke, Akino, and Guruko, follow the freshest scent. She probably took the lift down to the third tier, but check to make sure she didn't get off on the second. Pakkun and Shiba, show me _exactly_ where she went on this level. We'll catch up with the others later."

The pack split and Kakashi followed Pakkun and Shiba as they wove their way towards the business district, snapping and growling at anyone who blocked their way along the narrower side streets. A heavy feeling was growing in his stomach the further they headed towards the communications centre… but maybe he was wrong. Maybe, contrary to all rationality, Sakura hadn't really…

But all hope was dashed when the two dogs came to a snuffling stop outside a set of old fashioned doors. "She went in here," Pakkun said with certainty.

Kakashi looked at the name of the building painted above the doorway and internalised a groan.

_Ame Telegrams_

"Wait here," he muttered to the dogs before he pushed his way in.

The interior was remarkably like a bank, with an orderly line of people queuing up to be seen by one of the six telegram workers sitting along a counter that spanned the whole room. Unable to wait, Kakashi walked around the suggested queue, ignoring the soft mutters and gasps of annoyance, and shouldered one of the customers aside to address the female worker in a burgundy suit behind the counter.

"Was a pregnant woman in here earlier?" he asked her. "With pink hair and a white dress?"

The woman gave him an annoyed look. "Sir, please wait your turn-"

"It would be quicker if you just answer the question."

"There _may_ have been someone of that description here earlier, yes," she said impatiently. "Now, please-"

"What was she doing here?" he demanded. "Did she send a message?"

The woman spread her arms. "This _is_ the telegraphy office. People come here to send messages. If she was here, there's every chance she did just that."

"What message? Where did she send it?"

"Excuse me?" the woman gave a stupefied frown. "What makes you think we can just give that kind of information out to anyone who asks?"

"I'm her husband," Kakashi said plainly.

The woman almost certainly did not believe him. She repeated her judgemental once over and it was clear that she'd drawn the conclusion that he was _no_ _one's_ husband. "Makes no difference," she said. "I can't give out that information."

A bribe would settle this easily, he sensed. Kakashi reached for his pocket, prepared to fork over whatever amount that would flatter the woman's more agreeable and forthcoming side, but his fingers found nothing but fluff. He froze.

Sakura had taken all his money.

"If that's all, sir, please leave," the woman told him icily.

Kakashi gave her a faint, fixed smile. "I'm sorry about this," he said as he reached over the counter to grab the woman by the lapels and drag her forward. "But you really _must_ tell me what message the pregnant woman sent. It's a matter of national security."

"A matter of w-what…?" she stammered.

Well. Perhaps not _this _country's national security. "You heard me."

"Get the manager!" the woman barked to her co-workers. "He's a lunatic."

Perhaps he looked about as convincing an operative of Ame's police as he did a husband. He dropped the woman back in her seat and turned to the rest of the staff. If he was going to be branded a lunatic, he might as well make the most of it. "Who served her?" he asked loudly. "Who served the pregnant girl with the pink hair? Speak up within the next five seconds and I won't start cutting off ears."

To emphasise his point, he unsheathed his favourite kunai and flipped it between his fingers – just enough to demonstrate he knew exactly how to handle it.

For four seconds a room full of people stared at him in total silence. On the fifth tick of the clock, a short, young girl at the end of the counter erupted from her seat. "M-Me," she whispered, looking mortified at herself for even speaking up. "I served her."

Kakashi pushed another customer out of the way to approach the her. "What message did she send?" he asked.

"I-I don't remember," she gasped. "I only remember she was sending it to Konoha. She had to pay fives times the usual rate for c-correspondence to a hostile territory."

No. No. _No!_

Kakashi ran his hands over his face and tugged his hair, doing nothing to allay anyone's fears he was a dangerous madman. He had to remain calm and collected, but that was hard to do when everything he'd been working to maintain for years was coming undone. "Do you have a copy of the message?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"W-We destroy the copies that are sent," the girl explained. "Unless it's still in the queue to be sent."

He dropped his hands sharply. "It might not have been sent yet?"

"Possibly…"

"What are the messages waiting to be sent?" he demanded.

"In the back – no – you can't go back there, sir!"

Kakashi swung himself over the counter, ignoring the panicked flutterings of the staff behind him as he forced his way through the next set of doors. Three telegraphy operators looked up in confusion as he entered, followed by several anxious workers from the front desk. No matter how many times the woman in burgundy told him, _"You're not allowed back here!" _ Kakashi remained oblivious, fixed instead upon the stacks of cards around the operator's desks.

"Are these the ones waiting to be sent?" Kakashi asked, pushing up band covering the sharingan to better peruse each printed letter.

"Leave, or else we'll call the police!" the woman insisted.

Ame military police were a pain even when they weren't trying to get in your way. "Call whoever you like," Kakashi said dismissively, planning to be long gone before any back-up arrived. He pointed his hand at one of the operators – and that this hand also held a kunai was only unintentionally threatening. "Have you forwarded anything to Konoha this morning?"

"I don't remember what I forwarded five minutes ago…" the man muttered, eyes trained on the blade instead.

"Shit…" Kakashi whispered to himself, and flipped through the queued cards at such a speed that he couldn't help that half of them fell to the floor in his rush to get to the next pile. "Where is it?"

A cloud of smoke exploded at his feet and the telegraphy staff drew back in alarm.

"We've found something, Kakashi," Bisuke panted. "On the third level."

"It can wait," Kakashi murmured grimly. He seized another pile of cards and flew through the place names printed on the corner of each, sharingan working faster than any human eye could.

"You need to come quickly…" his dog told him. "Your woman's down there. She's in a real bad way."

Kakashi's hand paused over a card. "What?"

"Quickly, Kakashi!"

The copy ninja blinked, as if seeing the mess he'd made in this office for the first time. He looked around at all the anxious, angry, and distressed faces around him. "I'm sorry," he said flatly, "I won't bother you again."

He left them floundering in his wake to rejoin Pakkun and Shiba out on the street. They both stood when they saw their human and wagged their tails nervously at the mood he brought out with him. "She went to the great lift next," Pakkun told him.

"I know," he responded shortly. But he had no intention of making a pointless trip to the lift for a trip down that would talk fifteen minutes at the very least. That would take too long. He looked at his dogs as he drew his hands together. "Meet me down on level three."

Without waiting for their acknowledgement, he finished the seals of his jutsu and felt the very ground he stood on become as insubstantial as air. Gravity took its course and he slipped downwards, right through fifty-five feet of concrete and metal to fall from the ceiling of the second level. He didn't release the jutsu as the ground rapidly flew up to meet him again, and he plunged once more through a barrier of pipes and struts and supports.

The ground of the third tier appeared below him. Kakashi released the jutsu and spread his arms vainly to slow his descent. He hit the ground hard enough to dent the mental grating, but a last minute roll saved his bones from shattering on impact. He had to fight to get the air back into his lungs, and after a few seconds he managed to draw himself back up onto his feet. Bisuke, Pakkun, and Shiba appeared around him almost instantaneously.

"That was dangerous," Pakkun reprehended.

"I didn't ask your opinion," Kakashi said stiffly. "Where is she?"

"This way," Bisuke chirped. "I think."

Kakashi glared at him. "You think?"

"The ammonia's seriously thick down here, I can hardly smell a thing…"

They had to navigate by sound mostly. Sound carried well down here between these two slabs of metal levels almost a mile long in each direction, and the distant barks of the pack drew them like a beacon through the fog. The smells were absolutely noxious even to Kakashi's nose. As they grew closer to their target, it only got worse.

"We're downwind," Pakkun explained as they sped through walkways and bridges that formed a labyrinth between the pipes and factories.

They emerged from a tunnel and the view of the lake opened up before them. He could see a few fishing boats below him, lined up along a dock of sorts, and it was the first sign of life he'd seen down on this level.

"This way," Bisuke led them along the walkway. Up ahead Kakashi could see the other members of the pack hovering around a lumpy shape on the ground.

He didn't really notice the foul stench of sewer water as he approached the body. All he saw were the bite marks and the missing fingers and the long deep gouge along her back that had severed her spine and slice through her rips like butter. Her platinum hair, once her pride and glory, was sodden and brown, and plastered to her skin like frayed string.

Kakashi sat with a thump beside her, not caring of what unspeakable filth covered the ground. He reached out, drawing her onto her back so the ugly, fatal wound was no longer visible. There was nothing he could do but take her cold, lifeless hand and hold it within his.

"What the hell was she doing here?" he whispered.

The pack couldn't answer. They hovered a good distance from the mess, offering small whines of uncertainty. Kakashi looked around, bemused. There was a pipe piercing the ground a short distance away. A scrap of soiled cloth was caught around it, and he recognised it immediately. But it made no sense. "Sakura did this?"

Pakkun lifted his head from the ground. "She was here. But so was someone else."

"Who?"

"Your other student. The one who smells like storms."

Kakashi wasn't sure if he even had the energy to feel surprised. "So she's working with Sasuke now."

"Their trail leads to the boats. It's not so old. They could still be on the lake."

He was no longer attending Pakkun's words. His eyes had landed on a dirty little scroll that lay abandoned on the ground near Reika's foot. It was unopened and disregarded.

It was the scroll he'd given Sakura to keep her safe.

Belatedly he realised Pakkun was calling to him. "…what?"

"Do you want us to follow the trail?" the pug asked him again.

Kakashi turned his attention back to the girl whose life had ended in filth. He gently slid her wide eyes shut, never once releasing his grip on her hand. "Leave it," he said dully to his dogs. "If she's with Sasuke, she's safe."

"She'll be heading back to Konoha," Pakkun commented.

Kakashi took a deep breath and released it slowly. "It doesn't matter anymore. Let her do what she likes. I have to take Reika's body home. You can all leave now."

Pakkun cocked his head. "But-"

"Leave."

One by one the dogs reluctantly departed until only Pakkun lingered. "If you're letting her go… does this mean you're choosing your clan? You can't ever go back to Konoha after this."

"I'm aware," he sighed. "Pakkun, please. Just leave."

The pug echoed his sigh, deeper, and more regretful. "I'm sorry, Kakashi," he muttered, before disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

A soft, warm wind ruffled Kakashi's hair and clothes. It emphasised just how still Reika lay beside him. "I'm sorry you had to die like this," he whispered to her.

But he was even more sorry that the moment he'd recognised her… he had felt only relief that the body lying there had not belonged to Sakura.

* * *

"His fiancée?"

Sakura caught herself nodding, before she remembered she was talking to a blind man. "Yes," she said, concentrating on rubbing the bar of soap furiously over her dress. She was crouched in the shallows of the lake's east shore, half-naked and shivering, but at least around Sasuke she didn't have to worry about modesty. It wasn't like he could gain anything from _hearing_ her nudity.

"She was trying to kill you," Sasuke said evenly, still sitting on the prow of the fishing boat they'd hijacked and run aground. "Kakashi would find that understandable. He's a reasonable man, beneath it all."

"I'm not worried about retribution," Sakura said snippily, "or… or seeking his forgiveness, if that's what you think. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. If I'd had my own chakra, I could have just incapacitated her or something."

"And if you'd had wings you could have flown away," Sasuke responded with a shrug. "You have to make do with what you have. There's no point crying over spilt blood."

"Who's crying?" she grumbled. Her bar of soap scrubbed furiously over her dress for the third time now, but she was still convinced it stunk. Maybe it was her?

Sasuke slipped down off the boat's prow to land on the water. "If you came here with Kakashi," he said, walking past her. "How did you get away from him?"

Sakura kept a wary eye on his movements. Despite coming to her aid, she wasn't confident enough to turn her back on him in case he ever decided to get even for attacking him by the river eight months ago. Only the stupid let their guard down about Uchiha Sasuke, whether they were friend or foe or an odd mix of the two. "I drugged him," she explained simply.

"Your preferred method of attack, it would seem," he remarked.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "It works, doesn't it?"

"Unless it backfires." He turned in her general direction, and even though she _knew_ he was blind, she fought the urge to hold her dress up to cover herself. "Did you stab him too, or…?"

"I fed it to him," she said. "He went down very peacefully." If not a little bit too amorously, even though depressants didn't normally produce a state of arousal. Not unless the desire was already there, being suppressed like all the other secrets the serum liked to bring out.

This, at least, Sakura refused to discuss with Sasuke anyway.

"I doubt he would have attacked you anyway. He's obviously willing to let you get away with an awful lot," he said, kicking a foot against the pebbles of the shore. "If I were him, I would have killed you a long time ago. Your living poses a nuisance."

"Thanks," Sakura said in a voice that dripped with reproach.

He gave another tiny shrug, before reaching down to run his fingers over the pebbles. "But I'm not him, and I wouldn't like to be him," he said. "Imagine how he feels right now. The one person in the world who knows all his most damning secrets and is willing to share them has escaped his control. He's probably tearing his hair out."

"It's his own fault," she said firmly. "He should have come clean from the beginning!"

"And turn his family over to Konoha's brand of hypocritical justice?" He was weighing pebbles in his hands now, and he turned to the still surface of the lake. "The Hatake clan's only crime is that they never joined Konoha, but their behaviour is no better or worse than the shinobi attached to villages. You undertake missions for money and you kill people without asking questions. So do they. The only difference is they choose their own goals and you don't. They're free, and you're a lapdog. The villages seek to break the rogue clans to give them order and safety in numbers. The rogue clans seek to destroy the villages to give them freedom. There is no difference, Sakura."

Sakura sighed loudly. "I'm not listening to the anarchist speech," she muttered.

"It's hard facing up to the fact that your way of life is not the only way, nor is it intrinsically better or more ethical. Hatake Karasu is as good a man as any. He cares about his own and he cares about the state of the world. You could say the same for any nin loyal to Konoha."

"Alright!" she snapped. "I get it! The Hatake clan are such _nice_ people when they aren't trying to run me through! But this is not about Karasu – this is about Kakashi! How many people do you think have _died_ because he hasn't come forward about the syndicate?"

Sasuke took a sideways stance to the lake and let loose one of his flat pebbles. Sakura didn't watch, but she heard the soft plops as it skipped over the water like a dragonfly. "Question is," he said, lining up another. "How many people do you think he has saved by feeding his war-crazy cousin misleading information, sabotaging his missions against Konoha, and manipulating him away from heavy-handed tactics? Truth be told, Konoha might have suffered huge losses by now if Kakashi hadn't been there to hold them back, even if none of you realised it."

"He's complicit in their actions against us…"

"Not as much as me, and yet who are you hanging out with right now?"

Sakura slapped her wet dress on the ground and sat. She was annoyed and depressed and upset and _dammit_ why did everything have to be so complicated? "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do then?" she demanded of no one in particular. "If I turn Kakashi in, Konoha has a greater shot at destroying the syndicate and ending the war – if I don't, I'm just as complicit as Kakashi in protecting the enemy and risk letting the war escalate! Don't give me sob stories about free clans! This is a no-brainer! I _have_ to tell."

"It would be naïve to think telling Konoha about Kakashi and his clan would resolve the war," Sasuke sighed. "They'd be driven further underground but would continue to fight on… the only difference is, you will have lost your best asset against them. Kakashi is Konoha's unofficial spy and will remain so as long as Konoha is unaware of the fact. Turn on him and you lose him."

"If I keep quiet, I'll be thrown in prison too," Sakura said coldly. "That's not happening."

"No, it wouldn't be wise," he admitted. "They don't have nurseries in prison."

She scoffed and folded her arms over her knees. "I don't know why I should even bother listening to you. Everyone knows how _you_ feel about Konoha. I should be doing the exact opposite of everything you say."

"I don't have any need to lie to you," he said simply. "Konoha is busy destroying itself one way or another, and whatever you choose to do will hurt your village. So what _do_ you intend to do now, Sakura?"

She shook her head. "It's too late. I already contacted Konoha and told them everything. They'll receive the message in a few hours and then someone will come to collect me."

"Konoha… is probably a place to avoid right now," he said.

"What?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "How come?"

"They're low on food, water, antibiotics. The syndicates agents have done a good job wreaking havoc on that village."

"That's why I _have_ to go back. I can identify the syndicate spies and Konoha will find its feet again."

"It's not just that, but from what I hear of the rumours going on at the Zuru estate… something _big_ is being planned against Konoha. If my guess is right, you should persuade your leaders to stage an evacuation the moment you return."

"What have you heard?" Sakura whispered, eyes wide as she tried to fathom what on earth could warrant an evacuation. The last time Konoha had ordered one of those was when over half the village had been levelled in a catastrophic invasion. Just imagining something like that happening again made her sweat.

"If I told you, you'd only use the knowledge for Konoha's benefit." He had the gall to sound amused.

"Sasuke!" she ground out. "People's lives are at stake!"

"And?" he asked expectantly. Then he sighed. "How long did you spend at the Zuru estate, Sakura? And you never noticed?"

"Noticed _what?"_

"The lake."

"The lake?" she repeated, stupefied. But… the lake was just _the lake. _What did a large body of fresh water have to do with anything?

"You were right to get away from that place," Sasuke went on. "Karasu's plans are dangerous."

"I'd feel better if you told me what they actually were."

"I don't know what they are. I can only guess." He shrugged, and then asked, "You've arranged a meeting point with Konoha?"

It didn't look as if she could extract much more from him. "There's a village near the border to the fire country. I've told Tsunade I'll be found there in two days in order to return to Konoha."

He nodded, thoughtful. "That's a long way from here. Are you sure you could manage alone?"

"Yes," she said dully, holding up a pair of knitting needles. "I have all the weapons I need."

He didn't get the joke. "However well-armed you are," he said seriously, "you'll be in danger."

"That's something I've been learning to live with."

"I'll take you to the village, Sakura."

She shot him a sharp look. "You will?" she whispered. After refusing to help her escape from the Zuru estate because her knowledge could help Konoha, he was now offering to help her escape Ame? "What happened to not helping Konoha?"

"If you've already sent the message, nothing I can do will affect the outcome. I might as well make sure you make it to the border alive. Just don't expect me to hang around once your friends appear."

She looked back across the lake to where Ame was now just a black shadow obscured by steam and mist. Kakashi would be awake by now, she was sure. Would he be worried about her? Was he on her trail right now? If she rejected Sasuke's offer of assistance did she run the risk of him catching up and reducing her to a prisoner again?

"Alright," she said eventually. "I promise not to stab you this time."

* * *

Next chapter: _Ashes to Ashes_


	35. Ashes to Ashes

A/N: Good news, everyone! I've updated my profile to include some beautiful fanart from very talented artists. :D Go check it out because there's some great pictures for HoC as well from Leona101. She really made my year (and this fic!)

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Four: Ashes to Ashes

* * *

_Do you know how I feel?_

_You are my Achilles heel__._

* * *

Pain exploded through Kakashi's face. His teeth rattled, his eyeball throbbed, and he was almost certain some delicate bones important to his beauty cracked like glass beneath the impact of the punch. He'd had worse. He'd _dealt_ worse. On the other hand, he'd never seen Karasu in the rage he saw him now.

"This is _your_ fault."

Kakashi remained mutely staring at the ground, fixing on the searing agony of his right cheekbone. It was broken. Almost certainly broken. But it was nothing compared to what had happened to Reika.

"This never would have happened if you hadn't left," Karasu ground out, jabbing his finger behind up at the bed where the dead girl had been laid out. She looked serenely peaceful now that she was washed and cleansed and dressed in the white kimono she would be cremated in.

His aunts and female cousins that were gathered nearby looked at the two men, aggrieved. "Please don't fight in here," his favourite aunt asked them softly.

Karasu ignored her. "What the hell were you _thinking?_" he hissed at Kakashi.

"You told me to leave," Kakashi reminded him, his voice coming thick through a numbed jaw.

"I told you to go back to Konoha and do your fucking day job!" Karasu snapped. "I didn't tell you to grab the fat maid and elope! Of course Reika was going to follow you! Do you have any idea what misery you put her through?"

"I had no idea she was there," Kakashi sighed. "Not until…"

Karasu's eye twitched. "And you say Uchiha Sasuke did this?" he prompted. "We've already got a hit out on that rat for selling us bad info. Reika never should have taken him on alone, but when I get my hands on that little shit, we'll see how much Konoha wants for his corpse."

Kakashi didn't want to think about that boy. "Has… has her mother been informed?"

"By crow. Yes. And next time we see her you will get down on your knees and beg her forgiveness!"

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said, and immediately regretted it when another fist slammed into his battered cheek.

"Please!" His aunt cried, standing up. "Take it outside!"

Karasu grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him out into the corridor. He conscientiously closed the doors behind him before turning back to Kakashi, who braced himself for another deserved punch. "Where's the girl?"

Kakashi went still. "What girl?"

"Don't play stupid with me – though you do it _so_ well!" Karasu was worryingly close to shaking him by the throat. "The maid! Where is she?"

"Right now? I have no idea," Kakashi said honestly. "And I have no idea why that's important."

A flicker of unfathomable rage danced through Karasu's eyes. Kakashi's brow furrowed in response. "What is it with you and that maid, huh?" he demanded of Karasu. "First you're warning Reika to stay away from her, and now you're interrogating me about where she is? What's really going on? Why the hell is she so important to you?"

"Do you really want to know?" Karasu asked quietly.

"Of course, I do."

"Then follow me."

Karasu scrutinised him for a moment before flicking a beckoning finger at him. Kakashi followed him up through the house to the Nightingale wing where the Zuru family slept. The master bedroom lay open ahead of them, and without pausing to knock or call out for permission, Karasu strode in and marched right up to a sort of shrine set into the opposite wall. Kakashi looked about curiously. Lord and Lady Zuru must have been elsewhere at this late hour.

"What are we doing in here?" asked Kakashi.

"You said you wanted to know why the girl is so important," Karasu replied, picking up the pot that appeared to be the centre of the shrine's display. "Well, this is it."

He turned back to Kakashi as he unscrewed the lid of the pot and reached inside. Without word or warning, he threw a handful of dark, chalky dust in Kakashi's face. The copy nin inhaled by mistake and began to cough. There was dust in his eyes, in his throat, up his nose and in his hair. "What was that?" Kakashi gasped.

"Don't you mean _who?_"

Karasu's sense of humour was as amoral as ever.

Frozen with disbelief, Kakashi stared at him. "You didn't just…"

Unimpressed, Karasu flicked another handful of ash at him.

"Alright – enough!" Kakashi snapped. "What's going on? What – _who_ is that?!"

Karasu tossed him the urn, and not in a way that suggested he cared if it was caught or not. "Say hello to Zuru Toshio. Who said only the good died young?"

Toshio…? Kakashi stared down at the inscription on the urn, and there was no denying that was name it bore. He thought of the unpleasant young man who had terrorised this estate not so long ago. Were the ashes in this pot – and in his hair and coating his nasal passages – all that was left of him? Some of him was spilled on the floor like excess talcum powder.

If there was a hell, he and Karasu were going there, but at least Toshio would be waiting for them.

"Well?" Karasu stared at him expectantly.

"I couldn't think of a more deserving person," Kakashi replied honestly, bitter only about the fact that he'd been cheated of further opportunities to traumatise him. "How did this happen?"

"As seems to be the usual case on this estate. Murder."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "Who?"

"Don't know, don't care. It happened the night you and the maid left, actually, so there is plenty of whispers that _she_ did it, or perhaps even conspired with you to bump him off."

Karasu was watching him closely, but Kakashi didn't care to act out his usual award-winning performance of innocence. In this case, he _was _innocent. "Put your imagination away. I could only _wish_ I was responsible for this."

But what about Sakura? She had opportunity and motive and means…

She was not, however, the kind of person who could murder indulgently. In self-defence and necessity, yes, she could end lives efficiently and with little fuss. If she'd killed Toshio for any reason before they'd left the estate, she would have mentioned it.

"Do you understand how inconvenient this is?" Karasu asked him. "Toshio was the heir – the _only _heir. Zuru could pop his clogs any minute now with that dickey heart of his, and if that happens the whole estate and the whole Zuru fortune that we are depending on will be dispersed among distant relatives, never to be seen by us again. It'll only be saved if Zuru had another son, which he doesn't, or else he has a _grandson."_

"Oh." Kakashi could see where this was going.

"Irritatingly enough, it was _your_ student who tipped me off to the problem," Karasu went on. "When Uchiha Sasuke was here with his bat ears, he mentioned Zuru's arrhythmia. I went to see the doctor before I left for Iwa – I met your little maid on my way, you know. I wonder if she was contemplating murder right then? Anyway, he confirmed. Zuru has maybe a year or two at most. But once he's gone, that's it. His money will be gone too. If we're going to remain funded, we're going to have to produce a male heir out of our asses."

Kakashi shook his head. "But the Zuru's don't want _this_ one. Not one belonging to a common maid-"

"This has been discussed. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Zuru family are willing to overlook the poor quality of the mother's blood and raise the child as one of their own, as long as _she_ has no further contact with it. It's a good deal, don't you think? The girl has no prospects, she should be glad her son will be raised as nobility."

"The child might not even be male," Kakashi pointed out.

"The doctor seems to think it is."

Shit. Kakashi looked away, trying to temper his own volatile reaction. "What happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?"

"It's quite weak against a sword," said Karasu, taking him by the shoulders. "You're a bleeding heart, Kakashi. I sympathise. You got fond of the girl and took her away to protect her from the Zuru family, and I understand that. But things have changed now – she'll be an honoured guest! There's no more danger."

"There's a murderer running around this estate!" Kakashi pointed out. "How many attempts have there been? The head of staff was poisoned, then Toshio – how did he-?"

"Poison," Karasu deadpanned. "Ah, there was another one too about a week ago actually. The other pink-haired maid, Yu or Yui, I think her name was. Poisoned as well. She's still recovering at the doctor's cottage."

Holy mother of Jashin...

"And you think Sakura will be safe here?" Kakashi demanded.

"Sakura," Karasu said slowly "will be under the protection of the entire Hatake clan. She'll be the safest girl in all the five nations. All you have to do is find her and bring her back."

"No," Kakashi said simply. It was out of the question. He could _not_ drag Sakura back here.

Karasu's expression hardened. "It's not your choice," he snapped. "I can command any crow within a five hundred mile radius of this place. If that girl steps into the sight of a single one of my feathered contacts, I'll know about it, and I'll be onto her like a tonne of bricks. You can help me, or you can sit in your room and sulk. Either way, I'm bringing her back."

Kakashi's fist clenched and unclenched powerlessly against his side. He itched to drop the urn and kick it across the room. It was as if Toshio was determined to make everyone's life a hell even after he'd expired, and this had to be some kind of posthumous revenge for tying him to a bed, naked. Karasu watched him unflinchingly, probably noting every tiny tick of anger and defiance that he could no longer control

"So what are you going to do?" Karasu asked him.

Kakashi touched his rapidly swelling face. "I'm going to go see the doctor," he said, and he shoved the urn of ashes back into Karasu's hands to sweep out the room again.

"Don't be such a baby! I didn't hit you that hard…"

* * *

Sakura had always liked the smell of burning wood, almost as much as she liked the smell of cooking duck. Rarely did she ever have the opportunity to sit beside a campfire, even on missions through various uninhabited terrain. Normally it was standard procedure to bring along a portable gas stove to cook with, and thermal blankets to keep warm. Both she and Sasuke, however, had been caught unprepared.

Most of Sasuke's supplies were now sitting abandoned next to a soba stand on a lonely lightning country mountain, since Sakura had summoned him in the middle of purchasing a bowl of noodles. Sakura's supplies that she'd carefully packed had been drenched with unspeakable filth, and though she'd managed to salvage her books and a few of her clothes, all the food she'd brought had been thrown into the lake with the rest of her belongings that were ruined beyond all usability.

Fortunately she and Sasuke were ninja, despite being pregnant and blind respectively, so they could rough it. Even if it meant having to catch their own food.

"Do you often catch your own food?" she asked him curiously as she nibbled on a tasty duck drumstick. "You're very good at it."

"It's easy enough," he said with a shrug. "Just shoot anything that moves with a kunai."

God help any unfortunate ramblers who happened to be passing by when Uchiha Sasuke was hungry.

"Junglefowl are pretty easy to catch anyway," he went on.

"But…" she said, looking down at the bird on the spit. "This is a duck."

"No, it's not. It tastes like a junglefowl to me."

"No, it tastes like a duck." She gave him a worried look. "You've been killing ducks all this time, haven't you?"

"Among other things."

"You're lucky you haven't caught anything poisonous yet," she murmured, looking about. They were trudging through thick rainforest here, and from the tiniest ant to the biggest herbivore, there was plenty in this forest that could kill you if you so much as licked it. Duck, however, was probably safe enough.

She looked at the carcass over the fire. It was pretty bare now on her side, and Sasuke had barely touched his half. "Are you going to have that thigh?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Do you always eat this much?"

"Think of it as a compliment to your cooking skills," she told him. "This is just as fine as anything served up in an Ame restaurant."

"Is that what you did then?" he mused. "With Kakashi? You wined and dined? Funny way to treat a hostage."

"He wasn't going to let me starve," Sakura said, scowling at him. The thought of Kakashi was enough to staunch her appetite very rapidly, and she caught herself picking at her meat till it frayed.

"Why did he even bring you to Ame?" Sasuke asked. "Surely he knew you'd have a better chance of escaping from there, along with a multitude of ways of contacting Konoha."

She sighed. "Yeah, he knew… and he thought I was beginning to trust him, so he trusted me too. But the only reason we came was because I wanted to put the baby up for adoption, and to do that we had to get away from the Zuru estate. He was only trying to help me."

"Then why ditch him?"

"Something about the road to hell being paved with good intentions, I don't know." She dropped the bones into the fire and sucked her fingers. "For a while I was actually prepared to go back to Konoha with him and keep his damn secrets as long as his family didn't cause any more trouble. But then…"

"Then Iwa restarted its armed campaign again," Sasuke guessed. "And he changed his mind?"

"Maybe. I just drugged him and got out of there before he could even think about figuring a new way to keep me quiet."

"No more plans to adopt?"

"Maybe," she sighed again, rubbing her hands over belly. Things were certainly feeling a lot tighter these days. "Maybe not."

"Is the father waiting back in Konoha? Is that why you were trying to get rid of it abroad?"

Insightful… but far off the mark. "I seem to remember telling you it was none of your business," Sakura informed him tartly. Sasuke offered her a shrug and said nothing more, and in silence they finished the rest of their meal, refilled their canteens at a nearby stream, and stubbed out the campfire with dirt. It was time to get moving again.

They were still half a day away from the village where she would rendezvous with the team from Konoha, but at the speed they were travelling that could be an optimistic projection. Sasuke was not _quite_ as patient as Kakashi had been during the trip to Ame. When Sakura said that she needed to rest her back and take the weight off her feet, Sasuke sighed and sometimes even tutted at her as if she was holding him back, which was rich considering there was no reason why _he _would be in a rush to get to the village. If she heard him, Sakura would loudly and sarcastically apologise for being so damn pregnant as to inconvenience him and point out that things would go much quicker if he carried her.

To which he went oddly quiet like a man contemplating what it would be like to be sat on by an elephant.

The border village lay directly east from Ame. And so did the Zuru estate. Even though they would pass that place by several miles, Sakura couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that they were walking in the wrong direction if the distance between her and the Hatake clan was ever at any point growing shorter.

They stopped to take another breather beside an ancient tree at the roadside that was almost entirely black with disease. Sakura recognised it from her first trip through the rain country around five months ago. "We're about three hours away from the Zuru estate," she recalled uncomfortably.

"And about two from your target village," he pointed out, then noticed her lagging behind him. "Don't tell me you need another break."

"Oh, don't let me hold you back," Sakura grumbled. "You're welcome to go on ahead of me_."_

"How far along are you, anyway? You have to be due any day now by the sound of it."

"I'm _eight_ months," she ground out.

"You're awfully heavy for eight. Is it twins?"

"Thank you for feeling you needed to point that out to me."

"Or perhaps it's just going to be a fat baby?"

"Would you-"

"Maybe it takes after its father, Chouji?"

He was deliberately trying to wind her up, banking on her temper to make her spill the identity of the father. But he could antagonise her all he liked – there was no interrogation technique that existed that could make her admit she lay down with Hatake Kakashi, and definitely not to her first love of all people.

"You're just wishing it was you," she remarked cattily, hoping to end his interest by putting him on the defensive.

But instead he just shrugged and said, "Yeah. Maybe I am."

Sakura stopped dead on the road. "Don't even joke about that."

He carried on walking. "I never joke," he said simply. "I've always wanted to resurrect my clan, and I'd be lying if I said I'd never considered you as a possible candidate."

How typically unromantic! Sasuke didn't consider lovers as 'partners' but as breeding machines for his glorious genes. Then again Sakura would also be lying if she said she'd never wanted to be that woman he picked to start a large new family with. That didn't mean she had to tell the truth though. "Why would I ever have wanted to help you do that?" she asked haughtily, speeding up to catch him. "I have _some_ self-respect, you know."

"That's ok. I've come across several other women who would do the job just as well," he said indifferently. "But it's such a waste…"

"What is?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"That a kunoichi of your talents and drive is going to get stuck changing diapers at twenty-one because of a worthless man," he said. "You might as well have dropped dead as far as Konoha is concerned. You'll be no use to them now."

"Having a baby is not the end of the world," Sakura told him tritely, though she often felt that way herself sometimes.

"Is the father going to help you?" Sasuke asked.

She thought about Kakashi's apparently earnest offer to give her support if she chose to keep it, but still the fear that he was just trying to _buy_ her silence haunted her. Kakashi could be coldly logical sometimes, and at others perfectly sentimental. It was possible he wanted to arrange it so that turning on him would mean compromising the upbringing of his own child, and it was also possible that he would hand over all his bank details just to keep her happy and assuage his guilt. "He said he would," she said truthfully. "However much that entails."

Now it was Sasuke's turn to stop short on the road. Sakura had to conclude he was not capable of smiling these days, because otherwise his lips should have been curved up into a victorious smirk. "Then it's no one in Konoha," he said.

Sakura stopped with an uncertain frown. "Pardon?"

"You didn't tell anyone you were pregnant before you went on such an extended mission because they would have stopped you, or told someone else who could have stopped you, and you haven't been in contact with Konoha since because you told me as much that Kakashi has been keeping you isolated," he said. "So that means if you've been in contact with the father, he must have been at the estate."

"Good luck narrowing that down. There are over three hundred men living and working there," she informed.

"And you may have dropped your panties for each and every one of them for all I know, yes, but you're _eight _months pregnant, and eight months ago you were trading blows with me in a north-western province of the fire country and certainly not anywhere near the Zuru estate. So I wonder what man you were with then that was also with you at the estate later…?"

A prickly pang of annoyance and humiliation shot through her veins. "Alright, Detective!" she snapped icily. All he was missing was a sidekick and a drawing room full of enraptured suspects.

"I never knew you had a teacher complex, Sakura," he returned.

"It's not – I've never – not with Kakashi!" she lied furiously. "That you'd even suggest it is sick and perverse!"

"I don't think I'm the sick and perverse one here," he said a little smugly. "Remember. I can tell when you're lying – your voice goes up."

"I hate that!" she said with vehemence that surprised even herself. "I hate that you think you know me after all these years! You think you have me all figured out, but-"

"I do have you all figured out," he protested simply. "Don't worry. It's not like I think any less of you for screwing our mad teacher. In fact I'm impressed."

Sakura's face flamed, unbeknownst to Sasuke. "He didn't take much convincing," she said through her teeth. He hadn't even bothered to _pretend_ to resist like a more professional superior might have the first time she'd kissed him. That in itself should have been a warning sign.

"No, I mean what you're doing now. I'm impressed," he clarified. "You're willing to stab your lover in the back for the sake of your village. Not many people would choose loyalty over love, but you're more ruthless than you look, aren't you? You really are a high level kunoichi. I wonder what happened to the girl who said she'd do anything for me and begged to come with me when I left Konoha?"

"She got pregnant," Sakura said shortly, "and realised men exist to bring women down."

"And that birth control is for losers, huh?"

"At least I'm not still a virgin!" she retorted.

"I'm not a virgin. Who told you I was a virgin?"

"You're lying. I can tell when you're lying – your voice goes deeper when your masculinity is threatened."

If he had a comeback it was forgotten when the bushes a few dozen feet away rustled. Sakura and Sasuke both turned to look sharply at the source of the noise, and Sakura relaxed upon seeing a little rabbit hopping between the weeds to nibble on some leaves. Knowing her luck, she'd expected to be set upon by the Hatake clan.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked, scowling in the direction of the small herbivore.

Sakura looked at him sideways. "It's just one of those giant tigers the rain country is famous for. Looks kinda hungry."

Sasuke put his hand to his sword.

"I'm not eating tiger for dinner," she cautioned him. "So don't bother."

"We'd best keep moving if we don't want to be the _tiger's _dinner," he said quietly.

The blind could be rather a lot of fun, Sakura discovered. It was a shame he wouldn't come back to Konoha – someone like Naruto could have endless fun at the expense of a blind friend. Although perhaps he knew that and was just another reason why he steered clear of the place. Come to think of it –

"It's alright if you want to part ways here," she told him. "It's only a couple of hours walk, if you don't want there to be any chance of bumping into anyone from Konoha."

He thought about it for a few seconds. "And leave you to be eaten by tigers? Let's just keep going for now. _I'll _decide when I'm at risk."

When they had to stop every hour or so out of consideration for all Sakura's aches and cramps, the last three hours to the village became five. By the time the first houses began to appear, it was getting close to midnight and without much of a nightlife in such a small place it was awfully quiet. Knocking at the door of the inn produced a small, irritable little man in his pyjamas who was not at all pleased to have been roused so late. He was not, however, too annoyed that he couldn't accept Sakura's money and request for boarding, and when he noticed her condition he also lowered his price.

Being pregnant at least had _some_ advantages.

"Room six, end of the hall," he said, and with a yawn disappeared back to bed.

Sakura looked at Sasuke, amazed he was still with her this far, but he didn't seem interested in leaving just yet so she shrugged and led him to the room they'd rented. It was pleasant and clean with a wide double bed and a set of glass doors leading onto a dark balcony. Sakura set her bag down on the floor and sat on the bed with a blissful sigh. "That's better," she whispered, and tried not to think that the journey to Konoha would be five times as long and arduous.

Across the room, Sasuke was scoping the joint, touching a hand to the glass doors and discovering the closet. "When will Konoha arrive?" he asked her.

"Two days, at the earliest," she said. Already she was reaching for the pillows to stack them around her in a pleasing nest.

"Then I can stay here with you for a while," he decided.

Sakura said nothing. She didn't feel any need to chase him off, not while there was still a possibility that Kakashi could catch up before anyone from Konoha arrived. He wasn't _great_ company, but he certainly wasn't the worst she'd had and if he wanted to stay out of some odd concern for her well-being, who was she to discourage that? But… "You're not sleeping in the bed," she told him what she'd told Kakashi countless times now.

"I doubt there'd be room for me."

On second thoughts. "If you're only going to linger to insult me, you can push off."

"I don't want to sleep anyway. Someone has to keep watch," he said, finding the armchair beside the bed. "Or whatever."

Sakura settled down on the bed with a shrug. She knew it wasn't just about keeping watch. She'd already betrayed him once on a whim and he wasn't about to close his eyes and fall asleep in her presence in case she decided to do it again. Having used the last of her sedatives on Kakashi, Sasuke was in no danger from her. But even if she did have the capacity to neutralise him now, Sakura didn't think she would.

All the things he said about Konoha… he _really_ hated it. Not just this particular village but what it represented, and all villages like it. He hated the institutionalisation of their trade, and the presumed authority to chase down any nin who remained free. And if freedom was all Sasuke wanted, she no longer thought she could even _try_ to capture him again. Perhaps, as Kakashi had said, everyone would be happier if he was allowed to live as he wished.

And this really was no different from what the Hatake clan thought of the villages. And if she couldn't find the will to turn Sasuke in, was it fair to expect Kakashi to turn his family in?

* * *

Missing a night's sleep and walking all day had finally taken its toll on Sakura by the next morning. She woke up feeling sore and abused and with a clock on the wall that told her she'd hugely overslept. Lunchtime had come and gone, and her stomach gave sharp pangs of distress at having been neglected for so long.

She rose shakily to her feet and looked around. "Sasuke?" she called, as she tried to blink the blur from her eyes.

But there was no sign of him anywhere. Had he left already? Without even a word? Or had he just gone to the toilet in the night and got lost? Well, no. This was a guy who could navigate from the rain country through the fire country to the lightning country on his own. He could find a damn bathroom if he pleased. Most likely he'd just left and wasn't one for awkward goodbyes.

Giving a stiff yawn and a stretch, she rose to her feet and shed her clothes for something a little fresher. Still paranoid about the smell of sewage, she sniffed everything before she put it on, and wasn't exactly convinced she _didn't_ smell like manure. The lake water and soap had only done so much.

She jumped when the door behind her opened.

"There's a bathhouse down the street," Sasuke said. His hair was wet and his cloud-nin uniform had been traded for something more low-key for rain country territory. "Past the man who's shouting he's selling fried chicken that smells like fried rat."

"You can't tell duck from chicken, but you can tell chicken from rat?" Something wrong was going on here. She looked him up and down warily, wondering where he'd pilfered this set of peasant clothes from. There was probably some poor naked farmhand lying unconscious in one of this town's back alleys. "I thought you'd gone."

"For a bath? Yes." He offered her a shrug and a pointed sniff. "So should you."

"Alright, alright," she sighed. "I get the hint." She counted her lucky stars that he could not see her poorly suppressed smile to see that he'd stuck around after all. If Konoha didn't arrive till tomorrow, it meant he would perhaps at least stay until tonight. He may not have been the easiest person to get along with, but like an errant brother or cousin that didn't matter – family was family, and for all his faults she was glad to have him around.

"I'll be back in a bit," she told him as she picked up some of the money she'd pinched from Kakashi's pockets and went in search of the bathhouse, following Sasuke's directions.

It was small, but clean, and most of the other bathers were in their late middle years, which was precisely the point in life that women seemed to look at other people's young children with rose-tinted glasses now that theirs had grown into unlovable adults. From the moment Sakura sank into the communal waters, she had to endure a litany of questions and comments.

"Is it your first?"

"You must be due any day now."

"You must be so excited!"

"Will you breastfeed or use formula?"

"What are you going to call it?"

"A boy? Your husband must be so proud!"

And because Sakura didn't want to expound upon the wearisome complexities fudging up her life right now, she just smiled and nodded and said, yes, her husband was proud, he was waiting back at the inn for her, they were on their way home, and they would live happily ever after in utter simplicity and joy.

Maybe it was all the uncomfortable personal questions from people who good-naturedly assumed she _must_ be happy and open about her baby, but Sakura was beginning to feel hassled and vulnerable, like there was someone behind her just out of sight on the periphery. It was a little like the feeling she'd had in Ame, shortly before Reika had cornered her. However many times Sakura glanced around the small bathing area, all she saw were other women and she couldn't sense any peeping toms hiding on the other sides of the partitions.

A flap of wings and a loud squawk made Sakura gasp and almost dive into the water up to the top of her head. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a large black crow sitting on the tall wooden fence behind her, a snail trapped in its beak.

It was just a bird… and she was probably being silly, but she couldn't help think back to the mews back at the estate where there had been row upon row of such birds to serve the Hatake clan. Sakura hunkered down in the water a little more and made sure the towel was wrapped tightly around her head. The crow paid no more particular attention to her as it smashed its prize against the top of the fence and gleefully gobbled the snail from its shell. When it finally took off with a great flap of wings, Sakura decided she'd had enough and climbed out of the pool to dry off and get dressed. She did at least feel a little more human for finally having a piping hot bath to ease her sore muscles, though she still couldn't shake the _hunted_ feeling tapping at the back of her senses.

As soon as she stepped out of the changing room she saw Sasuke waiting for her by the entrance.

"Is that your husband?" one curious woman asked.

"Yes," Sakura lied, because it was easier than explaining he was an estranged team-mate who had nearly killed her a few months ago.

Sasuke must have recognised her footsteps, because he glanced towards her as she approached. "You didn't have to come meet me, I could have found my way back to the inn by myself," she said.

"I'm a little concerned about this town," he said by way of explanation.

Sakura looked around the ordinary street with its ordinary people. Sometimes such a front of ordinariness in itself could be disconcerting for people like them who were trained to suspect the ordinary for the extraordinary. The unease was there, but Sakura forced herself to shrug it off. There was no way Sasuke was going to play on her insecurities and make her leave this place – not when she was due to finally make contact with Konoha tomorrow. "You're just paranoid," she said dismissively. "Would you like some fried chicken?"

"Fried rat," he corrected.

"If you were as hungry as me, you wouldn't be so picky either," she retorted.

Part of the group of women Sakura had been bathing with floated past and recognised her. "Congratulations," they said to the man they presumed to be her husband. "You must be a proud father."

Sasuke scowled. "But it's not mine."

The women looked dimly confused, and just as disapproving comprehension began to appear, Sakura grabbed Sasuke by the sleeve and began hauling him back towards the inn. "It's ok, I'll eat later," she blurted. "If you're so concerned about this town, let's hole up in the inn until tomorrow."

"I'm leaving tonight," he reminded.

"Yes, yes, I know…" she sighed.

Perhaps it was the glimpse of the crow, or Sasuke's comments of concern about the town, but Sakura felt compelled to lock the windows and draw the chain on the door the moment they were back inside their room. Sasuke followed her movements about the room with mild interest. "Konoha might not be here tomorrow," he told her.

She looked at him, affronted. "Of course they will. I arranged it all in the telegram."

"Yes, but the rain country border has been guarded for a while now. It was difficult for me to get across undetected, so I doubt it'll be all that easy for a larger group of Konoha nin to pass into the rain country. They're at war, you know."

"Everyone keeps saying that," Sakura sighed, exasperated. "Since when has the fire country been at war with the rain-?"

"Since twenty-five years ago," Sasuke said stolidly. "Ame never signed the peace treaty. They hate Konoha to this day for defeating them in the last war."

"Ame must be your spiritual home then," she remarked in a monotone, moving to sit on the bed.

"I don't think you'll have an easy time of getting across the border either," he mused. "You might as well stay in this country after all."

Sakura huffed an annoyed sigh. "Like hell."

"I'm serious. All you're going back to is judgement and oppressive motherhood. Why would you want that?" he asked.

"Shut up, Sasuke…" she mumbled, her face growing hot with a fierce mix of emotions she couldn't identify.

He shrugged and went to stand by the window, looking out as if he could feel the light on his face. "You realise if you go home pregnant, you'll probably be shamed by your friends and colleagues into raising it yourself? Give it away out here and no one will be any the wiser back in Konoha. No one can force you into something against your own interests."

Sakura sat quietly, arm hugging her belly and stroking it unconsciously. "No one's going to force me," she said dully. "I've already decided."

He looked back towards her, silently questioning.

"I'm keeping the baby. It's mine. My baby. My son."

Sasuke always looked indifferent, but now he just looked incredulous. "It's also Kakashi's baby. Kakashi's son. Don't you think that will create complications down the line?"

"Giving him away to strangers won't change that, and I don't think I could live with myself if I did," she said, her voice growing stronger as she spoke like her own thoughts on the matter were only just beginning to gain conviction. "Even if I struggle and I have to sponge off my friends and give up work and count my pennies – this is my responsibility. I'll manage. This will be a person, and I can't just throw him on someone else's mercy because I'm a little scared _now."_

Sasuke sighed and looked away again. "It's your life, and yours to ruin as you see fit."

"I don't think it can be ruined anymore than it has been," she mourned. "Ever since I had the bright idea to kiss a drunk pervert, my life was-"

"Shh," Sasuke interrupted sharply.

Half offended at being cut off just as she was really getting going, and half worried for the tense expression on Sasuke's face, Sakura stilled on the bed and listened intently. She could hear nothing, but then everyone had always said the blind possessed better hearing since it was their primary sense without vision.

After a few beats of silence, Sakura opened her mouth to ask what he'd heard – but he only held up his finger to quiet her before she'd even spoke. Wearing the same tense mask, he moved towards the door and turned his head as if to listen carefully for something on the other side. Just when it looked like he was about to relax, Sasuke suddenly stepped back sharply –

Just in time to avoid the electrifying fist that exploded through the panel. Splinters flew – Sakura clamped down on a flinch of shock and stood quickly to put the bed between her and the door. Trained instinct told her she needed a weapon – any weapon – but the sharpest object she had to hand were the knitting needles poking out of her bag.

Better than nothing.

Sasuke drew his sword and Sakura brandished her needles, and the gloved hand protruding through the door calmly reached for the lock to undo the chain. The arm disappeared, and a second later the broken door swung open.

"Who is it?" Sasuke asked her.

Sakura's stomach plummeted, but she never lowered her needles. "Kakashi," she said thickly.

The first to move was Sasuke. Faster than the eye could follow, he darted in as he drew his sword and only a swift step back kept Kakashi from having his stomach split open. A standing lamp on the table by the door fell in two halves.

"Don't!" Sakura shouted, not sure who she was even speaking to.

Something in Sasuke's footing faltered – a minor hesitation to follow his swing with a thrust – and through that tiny opening Kakashi pressed his advantage without any indecision. He flitted forward and grabbed Sasuke's wrist as he simultaneously jammed his fingers against his throat, forcing the younger man back against the bed with a constricted cough. An electrical charge pulsed. Unprepared, Kakashi flinched back and was immediately caught by the front of his vest and thrown, one-armed, in a move Sakura recognised. Sasuke had, after all, used it on her seven months ago when she'd nearly cracked her head open on a stone bridge.

Kakashi's body crashed this time into the sliding glass doors, and he crumbled there as shattered triangles of glass rained down on him.

"Don't do anything stupid!" she hissed at both of them. "I can't heal anyone here!"

But the fight wasn't over, and Kakashi stood stiffly, shrugging his shoulders to brush off the crumbs of glass dusting his clothes. Wordlessly he grabbed a handful of shards from the ground and flung them at Sasuke –

Another snap of electrical bursts. The glass turned to dust before it struck Sasuke – but the noise had drowned out the sound of Kakashi's footsteps moving in. He caught the younger man by surprise, driving him back against the wall hard enough to make the sword drop. Sakura watched as Sasuke immediately resorted to his best close-combat defence – Chidori nagashi. Yet as the electrical charge built around his body that could drive groups of people away from him more effectively than any punch, an equal charge built around Kakashi.

Sasuke suddenly convulsed and shrunk in pain against the wall. Kakashi had him by the wrists, pushing back against his chakra with his own, forcing it into Sasuke in what could only be agony.

"Don't use my own tricks against me, Sasuke," he grunted, as Sasuke's eyes rolled up. "Even you can't win against the sharingan."

Unable to hold himself up anymore, Sasuke's head sagged forward. When Kakashi stepped back, he slid to the floor like a dead man.

Maybe he _was_ a dead man…

Kakashi turned and looked at her, and for the first time since he'd entered she finally got a good look at him. And it wasn't pretty. Beneath his right eye lay a huge black smudge, as thick as oil, and from the way the eye itself looked drooped – as if the whole right side of his face had sagged or melted – Sakura immediately recognised he'd broken his cheekbone. Since when had he…?

"Thank you," he said, reaching out to her. Sakura didn't realise she was still brandishing her knitting needles at him until he'd taken them off her hands and moved back to Sasuke. He stabbed them into the unconscious boy's sleeves, pinning him to the ground completely.

Perhaps he wasn't all that dead then?

Kakashi sat on the bed with a sigh. The palm he'd sliced up on the glass shards lay upturned in his lap, and he paused a moment to pick it clean of the remaining glass slivers. "I don't know," he said tiredly, "if I've rescued the princess from the rogue, or defeated her knight in shining armour."

His first mistake was assuming she was any kind of princess. "You're too ugly to be the hero, Kakashi."

He pointed to his mangled face. "This is probably your fault anyway."

"I did no such thing," she cried indignantly. "I only drugged you…"

"I really wish you hadn't," he said with another light sigh, and Sakura wondered how quickly he'd figured out what she'd done after he'd woken up alone in that Ame hotel room.

"Did you follow us?" she demanded. "All the way from Ame?"

He shook his head. "I gave up. I was too tired to find your trail and too sick of chasing you."

"And yet here you are," she pointed out coldly, as a breeze from the broken window blew around the room. "Konoha will be here tomorrow… and when they come, you should be as far away as possible if you know what's good for you."

He just looked at her.

"I'm sorry," she said, stumbling awkwardly. "I sent them a message. I… I told them all about you and your family. If they find you here, I don't know what they'll do to you."

Kakashi returned his gaze to the ground.

"So… so you should just leave," she finished thickly. "Before they catch you."

She watched as he reached inside his vest and withdrew a crumpled piece of pink card. He threw it down on the ground at her feet, streaking it with blood in the process. Nonplussed, but curious, she managed to crouch to pick it up.

Her heart nearly stopped.

"Konoha won't be coming," he said flatly. "When I woke up in Ame, I followed your trail. I found this at the telegraphy office."

It was her telegram. The message she'd tried to send.

"Do not contact Kakashi or his summons," he recited, as if he'd learnt the words off by heart. "Compromised. Mercenaries are Hatake. Leader is Hatake Karasu. Please instruct team to meet me at 9 48 0, 105 49 59. Do not contact Kakashi."

He'd intercepted it. It was her own fault. If she'd given him a stronger dose, he would have slept longer, and if he'd slept longer he never would have got to the telegraphy office before they sent her message, and then he never would have known where to find her, and Konoha would be just around the corner… and... and…

Sakura dropped the useless card and pressed her hands over her face. "Why do you keep doing this to me?" she pleaded. "Just let me go! I never did anything to you!"

"Don't talk to me like that!" he ground out. "I don't enjoy this any more than you do, Sakura. If it was up to me, Sasuke could escort you all the way back to Konoha for all I care."

"And don't you pretend that you don't have a choice! You could let me go right now, but you're too busy licking Karasu's boots to use your own will!" she accused.

"I could let you go right now," he admitted, "but there are fifteen men downstairs who would disagree. I tried to convince them you weren't worth retrieving, but Karasu has his mind set. Not even I can talk him out of it now."

Sakura stared at him hard. "What are you talking about?" she whispered. "Why the hell would _Karasu_ want me back?"

"Because Toshio is dead," Kakashi told her bluntly. "The Zuru family are now completely without heirs, and Karasu wants to make sure _your_ son inherits the estate so that all the money ends up within the clan. I'm sorry, Sakura, but he must have been planning this for a while."

'Your' _son? What happened to _our _son? _Her head was shaking from side to side, unable to stop. "No. No," she said. "That's not happening. This baby is _mine_, not Toshio's. I'm not giving him to that family. Not in that place."

Kakashi rose to his full height which was ordinarily imposing enough when his face _wasn't_ disfigured. "Is that what you've decided?" he asked her sharply. "You know any child raised as the Zuru heir would be well provided for. He'd be protected by the Hatake clan."

"That's not going to happen! If there's even the slimmest possibility he'd turn out like Toshio – absolutely not!" she ground out, and dear god she hoped that guy had fallen into a meat grinder. "And the protection of your clan means nothing to me. I'd rather send him to be raised by a pack of rabid wolves than allow him to fall into the clutches of that family. I told you, this is _my_ baby. I'm the only one who'll be raising him!"

"The clutches of my family, huh? Does that include me?" he wondered.

Sakura squared her shoulders. "It's not… feasible," she said lamely.

"Oh, I know. Once you get back to Konoha, there's no hope for me, I know that. At least try to remember me fondly."

"What?" She frowned at him. His words didn't seem to follow the conversation.

Kakashi sighed and folded his arms. "Go back to Konoha, Sakura. Do what you have to. Sorry if you think I'm cowardly, but I can't come with you. I'd rather stay a free man out here where I may be of more use to everyone."

Her mouth dropped in surprise, unable to form any thought beyond 'oh' for a long time. "You're… siding with your family at last then, huh?"

"Not siding," he said simply. "Someone needs to keep a rein on them and I can't do that from within a cell in Konoha. You understand, don't you?"

Sakura wasn't sure she could trust her own ears. "You're really letting me go?"

"I came here with the others to give you a chance to escape," he explained. "Use it wisely. There's a back entrance out of this place, and if you head north I'll lead them south after a certain distraction."

"Distraction?"

Kakashi turned to the prone boy on the floor. "You can stop pretending to be unconscious. You're not going to hear anything more interesting."

Sasuke levered himself up with a sigh, plucking out the needles pinning his sleeves down. "I'm kinda disappointed. All this time she's led me to believe you've been keeping her locked in a cage, but in truth she has you totally whipped."

"She has you under her thumb too by the look of it," Kakashi remarked. "Are you willing to do her one last favour?"

"Perhaps," Sasuke grunted, dusting off his clothes, and Sakura wondered if he'd feigned defeat just to eavesdrop. "As long as it's not too far out of my way."

"Fifteen men downstairs are waiting for some action. Create a diversion and lead them south."

Sasuke's chin lifted.

Kakashi seemed to realise he wasn't team leader anymore and closed his eye briefly as if begging for patience. "Please," he said. "For Sakura."

"I don't know," Sasuke mused. "Sounds like a lot of effort and risk when she could just go peacefully back to the estate."

"Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you-" Sakura's rant was cut off when Kakashi's hand sealed over her mouth.

"You don't think you can handle fifteen men?" he asked the younger man incredulously.

The corner of Sasuke's mouth lifted in a smirk. "Goading works only on the insecure, sensei. You're lucky I already decided to help."

Sakura felt her breath coming a little more easily. She looked at up at Kakashi beside her, at his battered face and strong shoulders, and was suddenly struck by his unwavering compassion that had always been there, even when she'd thought the worst of him.

She didn't want to believe this could be the last time she ever saw his face.

The thought choked her. "Kakashi," she began uncertainly, reaching out for his sleeve, not sure what she wanted to convey or how to convey it.

Kakashi always understood her, usually better than she did. "We'll see each other again. I promise," he said as he touched a hand to the top of her head and followed it up with a brush of fingers against her cheek.

It was just words. So many promises had been made and broken to Sakura over the years that she no longer trusted them. It would be in his best interests if they never crossed paths again, so any desire to have him all to herself was just selfish nonsense. She really had picked the wrong man to fall for…

Sakura stepped in close to wrap her arms around him as best she could and nearly sobbed to feel the warmth of his embrace close around her. "I have to tell them the truth and warn them, but I'll make them understand," she promised him. "You're not a traitor."

"Just hearing you say that is enough for me," he whispered.

Across the room, Sasuke shifted awkwardly.

It was painfully hard to ease away from him, and she only managed it an inch at a time. When he was looking down at her and she was looking up at him, and her hands were gripping his waist while his were rested on her shoulders… the urge to kiss him was curbed only from the knowledge that it would aggravate his injury.

Yet she didn't want to part with him thinking he meant only as much to her as a hug. "How much do you remember from when I drugged you?" she asked quietly.

"I remember the dragon fruit and… not much else."

So he didn't remember their feverish little kisses or her wish to stay with him, always. However, it was one thing to confess to a man on sedatives who wouldn't remember her words later, and another to say the same to a fully conscious man while another stood nearby 'ahem'ing impolitely to get them to hurry up.

Instead she lifted his hand in both hers and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. In the circumstances, with one extremely wanted man breathing down their necks and another fifteen downstairs whose patience might not hold for much longer, it would have to do.

"Take what you can and head north," he told her heavily. "Kill any crows you see and head towards Konoha when you can. I'll keep everyone looking in the wrong place for you. Sasuke and I will create the diversion first, so you should wait a few minutes before leaving after us."

She nodded. There was nothing else to say.

With a slumped look he moved back around the bed to Sasuke. "Let's go then," he said to him.

"If you can keep up," Sasuke retorted.

"Just go easy on them. Most of them are only kids."

Sasuke shrugged and moved to the broken door. He wasn't one for goodbyes, so he did little more than flick a brief "Take care," in Sakura's direction before walking out, which was perhaps more consideration than anyone could have hoped to expect. Kakashi paused in the doorway after him and gave Sakura one last look, as if committing her to memory. She hoped that wasn't the case. She didn't want to be remembered as the fat, bloated thing she was now.

"See you," he said softly, and then closed the door behind him.

Dutifully, Sakura waited five minutes. In that time she heard commotion outside through the shattered window, and shouting that faded into the distance. Only when she was certain the streets were calm again did she pull on her back pack and leave the room. She followed her nose to the back door of the inn and came out into an alley between two rows of houses, and she was confident enough in her orientation to turn north and start walking. According to the maps she'd memorised there would be another town about four miles to the north. There she could re-supply with food and water and try to contact Konoha again.

There was no need to worry for Sasuke. If there was one thing he was good at, it was running away, and no doubt he could keep even a gang of Hatake boys distracted for hours. She was more worried about what might happen to Kakashi if anyone discovered his deception.

Houses fell away to allotments, allotments merged with fields, and fields turned into forest. Sakura shot frequent looks over her shoulder to check for followers, and listened intently to the bird calls of the jungle. There were many, but the sound of a crow was distinctive, and if she heard a single cackle or croak, she'd pick up a stone and do just as Kakashi had suggested. Her gut instinct was rarely wrong. She hadn't been all that paranoid about the crow that had flown into the open bathhouse.

Her first break was taken in the shade of crumbling precipice of rock and moss where the air was cool and damp. She only intended to close her eyes for a moment, but the fatigue and the tranquil forest seduced her into a near stupor, and her worries trapped her in her thoughts long enough for her to forget to keep moving.

She kept seeing Kakashi's pleasant little smile in her head. The one she'd never seen him give anyone else but herself. The first time she'd seen it was at the hospital, when she'd woken up from a poison induced fever after a mission to find her team leader sitting beside her. He'd said he hadn't been at all worried and he'd smiled that diffident smile at her, even though the state of his clothes, and the growth of his beard, and the redness around his eyes betrayed his breezy comments.

Was she ever going to see that smile again?

A thin smell of tobacco tickled her nose. Sakura screwed up her face. It wasn't fair. Kakashi used to smell alright until he'd started smoking - although lately she'd noticed he hadn't really smelled of smoke at all. Always conscientious of lighting up around her, he hadn't got much of a chance the more time they spent together. She supposed now he could light up all he liked…

The smell of tobacco grew stronger, and rapidly it dawned on Sakura that it wasn't just her memory supplying her with phantom odours… she really _was_ smelling tobacco.

She sat up abruptly, eyes popping open to fix on the figure who'd appeared upwind of her. He was sitting atop one of the giant fungi that grew on the giant trees in these parts, but instead of a cigarette he was holding a long, thin pipe.

"It's very dangerous to travel alone in places like this," Karasu said, staring up at the canopy listlessly. "Didn't Kakashi ever tell you that?"

Sakura closed her eyes again, never having felt as weary in her life as she did right then.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Offer She Could Not Refuse_


	36. The Offer She Could Not Refuse

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Offer She Could Not Refuse

* * *

_In pitch dark, I go walking in your landscape._

_Broken branches trip me as I speak._

_Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there._

* * *

Every step of the way back to the estate was like walking through tar. The temptation to just stop and turn around dragged on him like a heavy shadow, and perhaps the only thing that prevented him from retracing his steps back to Sakura for another goodbye was the presence of his clan around him. They thought he was leading them back to the estate. In reality they might as well have been marching him back with swords drawn around his neck.

If any of them noticed his maladroit silence, they put it down to their failed objective. Not only was the girl they sought still at large, but the very tempting target of the Uchiha heir had crossed their sights only to slip away again. They would have chased him for longer if Kakashi had allowed it, but three arms had been broken in the scuffle and Sano had sustained a nasty head wound; it just wasn't safe to continue given Sasuke's reluctance to hold back on his younger cousins. Sano was only fifteen, and Kakashi didn't want to have to apologise to any more of his aunts for getting their children killed.

"He must have been playing with us. You saw how fast that guy was."

"Ori clipped him."

"I doubt that. Ori couldn't clip a dead cat tied to a target from three feet away."

"Hey…"

Kakashi threw a sharp look over his shoulder. "Stop wittering, ladies, and pick your feet up," he ordered.

They responded accordingly in meek silence, heads bowed, although it wasn't long before Kakashi's sharp hearing caught someone whisper, "What's _his_ problem?" But whomever had uttered it was immediately hushed by several others who knew that Sasuke was Kakashi's former student and that this student had killed his fiancée.

Yet that was the least of Kakashi's problems right now. He was more concerned about whether or not Sakura could make it back to Konoha safely alone, and the fact that once she did, he would be in exile for the rest of his life. The task lying ahead of him now was to convince Karasu to move the clan to another safe-house without letting on that this was because Konoha would be coming for them soon once Sakura informed the Hokage of all she knew.

As they passed through the gates of the Zuru estate, Kakashi turned back to the group. Sano was slipping in and out of consciousness by then from blood loss. "Take him to Eno for healing," he said, "and anyone else who's injured."

"What about you?" Ori gestured to Kakashi's face.

"Karasu won't let him heal that," his brother Tesuo corrected him, before adding a muttered, "It's punishment for Reika."

Ori grew indignant. "Since when has Uncle Eno ever listened to Karasu? He's not the real-" A cousin elbowed him from behind, cutting off the rest of his comment.

Kakashi sighed. "I'll live," he said. "Just get yourselves sorted out and I'll go explain things to Karasu."

No one envied him this task. They would rather voluntarily break their bones as an excuse to see Eno than have to explain to Karasu that their mission had failed. But on the other hand, Kakashi would rather be telling Karasu that Sakura had gotten away than be handing her over wrapped in a bow, so he didn't care either way. His only task was in locating him at this late hour.

He left the team in the courtyard and made his unhurried way to the house. The half asleep boy watching the door was so clueless he probably didn't even know who Karasu was, so it took a bit of hunting through the hallways to find someone who might know. On the stairs to the guest wing he ran into Reika's older sister whose eyes were still red raw from crying. At seeing Kakashi, it looked as if she wanted to burst into tears all over again.

"Have you seen Karasu?" he asked her carefully.

"Karasu?" she said faintly, like she'd turned into a ghost long ago. "I think he got back a little while ago."

"Got back?" he asked sharply. "Where's he been?"

Midori waved her hand. "I don't know. Why should I have asked?"

"Where is he now?"

"Around…" she muttered. "I think I saw him heading up to the Nightingale wing not very long ago."

The nightingale wing was where the Zuru family slept. Kakashi hoped to god the man hadn't gone to play with a certain person's ashes again. Leverage or no, Lord Zuru would almost certainly cast them out without a penny if he knew Kakashi had been forced to snort his own son. There was only so far you could push a man.

Softly spoken voices reached his ear as he ascended the stairs towards the family's chambers. He couldn't make out the words, but he recognised the tones. Kakashi frowned. Instinctively he slowed, masking the sound of his footsteps on the boarded steps until he could see down the whole length of the main corridor of the Nightingale wing. Inside a doorway to a room he'd thought was unoccupied stood two figures, undoubtedly engaged in a low, serious discussion. A very close one.

Lady Zuru had always been tall and willowy, but grief had transformed her into an even more fragile figure. She stood fingering a pendant at her neck listlessly, listening to whatever it was Karasu was whispering into her ear.

Then she was shaking her head. "No. _No. _I want it gone from the lake. This is madness," he heard her say clearly. "The girls-"

Her gaze caught Kakashi's movement and flashed up in a picture of alarm.

Karasu shot an impatient look over his shoulder.

Ah, Kakashi thought. _I see how it is._

Whatever they'd been discussing was wrapped up quickly and dropped, and Lady Zuru retreated back into her room with a soft farewell and shut the door. Free again, Karasu turned to him expectantly. "What?"

"No goodnight kiss?" Kakashi wondered. "I had no idea the lord and lady were keeping to separate rooms."

"The loss of a beloved son can be hard on a marriage."

"Luckily she has someone to swoop in to comfort her."

Karasu smiled lightly. "You have a very simplistic view of the relationships between men and women."

"Not really." But he was happy for Karasu to think that. He knew better than anyone that this man was absolutely frigid, and that was no sweet discussion between lovers even if that was the tempting conclusion to draw. However, Karasu being in cahoots with Lady Zuru was the least of his concerns right now. "I need to talk to you about something."

"It's ok. It happens to all men at some point in their lives. They have pills for it now anyway."

"Your vast and impressive experience with erectile dysfunction aside," Kakashi began curtly, "The mission didn't pan out."

"You didn't find the girl." For some reason Karasu didn't seem particularly surprised. In fact, he was almost smug.

"There was a distraction…"

"An ice cream cart drove past?"

"Worse. Uchiha Sasuke showed up."

"Ah. I imagine that was a very touching reunion," Karasu murmured, turning to drift down the corridor. Kakashi fell into step beside him. "I hope you killed him."

"He very nearly killed Sano."

"Not surprising. He's a very lazy boy… always forgets to duck."

A very astute observation. "He got away from us," Kakashi continued and braced himself but another clout to give him matching broken cheekbones.

"Sano?"

"Sasuke."

"Oh…" Again, he didn't seem very surprised or disappointed. "Well, he hasn't been evading Konoha for this long because he was an easy catch. I'm sure you did your best."

Kakashi stopped dead. Now he _knew_ something was up. Karasu was being far too… reasonable. It was creeping him out. "You don't mind?"

"We have bigger fish to fry right now than one troublesome Uchiha heir," Karasu said, turning to look back at him. "When everything is said and done, we'll turn our attention on him and get vengeance and closure for Reika and her family. But right now we can't afford to be distracted from our main goal. Spread ourselves too thin and we accomplish nothing."

"Then we should stop looking for the girl too," Kakashi said pointedly. "She's not integral to our main goal either."

"Our lack of funds beg to differ, but alright. We can stop searching for her if you like," Karasu said with an amused little smile playing on his lips. "We have everything we need right here after all."

"No," Kakashi began carefully. "With Sasuke on the loose, we should move to another safe house for a while."

Karasu's smile dropped. "No."

That was more blunt than Kakashi had anticipated. "You haven't even heard _why_ yet."

"Yes, I have. You want us to move because you think Uchiha Sasuke will give our position away to Konoha."

That had been his argument yes, to blame the inevitable intelligence leak on Sasuke instead of Sakura. But even he knew it was a hard idea to swallow. Sasuke hated Konoha as much as they did, and for him to voluntarily give them information would be against his own agenda. "You're wrong to underestimate him," Kakashi said anyway. "If I know one thing about Sasuke, he's predictably unpredictable. Are you willing to take the risk that he won't pass on our location to _someone _untrustworthy_?_"

"Perhaps. But the other pressing issue here is where the hell are we going to go now?"

Kakashi clicked his tongue impatiently. "We have a dozen safe houses in every country. That isn't a problem-"

"It's a problem _now,_" Karasu cut in, glancing around the corridor to make sure they were alone. "We're at war, and we're in hiding. We need to keep track of our contacts more than ever and ensure their loyalty. In such a remote position, that takes money, and money we no longer have."

"Your father's business-"

"Has run completely dry. Our only income is from _this_ place. Why do you think securing an heir for ourselves is so important? We can't leave now. Until I see Konoha's people banging on the doors, we're staying."

"This is a mistake," Kakashi whispered. "How much has it cost us trying to bring down Konoha so far? Our allies barely trust us, they're not exactly proficient fighters to begin with, and you're putting every one of our lives in danger for this. You want to see more go the same way as Reika?"

"Do you want your other cheekbone broken?" Karasu said stiffly. "Everything I have done has been in the best interests of this clan. _Everything_. Don't you dare accuse me of recklessness. You have no idea what I'm sacrificing personally."

Nothing, as far as Kakashi could see, aside from having squandered his father's money. That couldn't be much of a sacrifice since Karasu had never for a second been materialistic.

"And if Konoha does come knocking?" he asked.

"Why don't you go home and make sure they don't?" Karasu said, fixing him with a hard stare. "Haven't your shirked your duties enough? They'll come looking for you if you don't return soon, and that _will_ be a problem."

That no longer mattered. It wouldn't be long before Kakashi was outed in Konoha and the contacts would report back to Karasu. Then his double-life would be over and perhaps there would be some measure of relief with it. He'd always thought that becoming a permanent member of the clan was what Karasu wanted, but with the look of irritation he was enduring now, he had to wonder about that…

Being the outsider that drifted in and out of their lives with no solid place in the rigid hierarchy was one thing; moving in permanently might just rankle those who had only just managed to tolerate his presence so far. The last thing he needed was a repeat of the kind of incident that had ended the life of the last clan leader, if someone felt he was getting too comfortable, too close, and his head looked too well-connected to the rest of his body. Someone might, eventually, feel the need to correct these problems like his late uncle.

Whatever happened from this point on, he knew it wouldn't be peaceful in the least.

"Go to bed, Kakashi," Karasu told him after getting no response. "And tomorrow get Eno to sort your face out. It looks awful."

"Is this your way of forgiving me?" Kakashi asked uncertainly.

"Your face offends me in general, that's all," Karasu said with a shrug.

"Sorry."

"Yes, well… have a good night," his cousin said lightly, offering him a little wave as he turned to slope away down the corridor. Kakashi watched him until he turned out of sight around a corner and then made his own weary way back to the musty old guestroom.

Why did he get the feeling that Karasu was planning something? He was _always_ planning something, but this time…

This time there something wrong. It was a near tangible quality in the air he'd felt since the moment he'd returned here. Something was going on at this estate, and he couldn't trust in Karasu to enlighten them. If there were answers, he'd have to find them himself.

First, he'd have to start at the lake…

* * *

"Off for a midnight stroll, huh?" Karasu murmured, eyes trained on the pale figure moving through the dark garden below, heading towards the shore of the lake. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned his eyes away before Kakashi noticed he was being watched, deciding instead to step back into his room shut the balcony door behind him. He stretched his arms above his head with a sigh and paced from one side of the expansive suite to the other before he stopped at a table where a collection of cutting tools and weapons were displayed.

"You've turned my own best man against me," he said dully to the motionless girl sitting on the sofa in the middle of the room. "That's the trouble with women. Men can do such stupid things for you… but I supposed some good does come of it occasionally."

He turned back towards her, an ornate and perfectly balanced wakizashi blade in his hand. The girl gave no sign she saw or heard him approaching, even when he sat down on the coffee table directly before her and looked into her glazed eyes. Suddenly he reached out and tapped her cheek with two fingers.

Sakura blinked as if coming awake from a deep sleep. Deadened eyes dipped and began to gradually focus on her and her surroundings; at her hands resting on her lap, on the knees of a man sitting across from her, at the numerous kunai and origami frogs that littered the table he sat on, and a sheaf of papers that almost obscured an aged sketch of an old man. Bizarrely, Sakura found her eyes drawn to this before anything else. It was so out of place, this sketch, not because it was an obvious antique but because the subject of drawing was an otherwise ordinary looking old man… save for his ridiculously long, thin nose that protruded from his face like a broom handle. Sakura thought she'd seen something like this before, but before her sluggish brain could wonder any further, a hand passed between her eyes and the sketch. She jerked her eyes up the man as if only just realising he was there.

Karasu smiled back pleasantly. "I impress myself sometimes," he began. "I've never tried genjutsu on a pregnant woman before because babies have an annoying habit of neutralising the effects of the jutsu on the mother the same way an outside body touching her would, but it turns out I really am just that good. Genjutsu talent isn't something that runs strong in my family. Apologies if it gave you any strange dreams."

Sakura just stared back, her mind beginning to catch up with her situation while her body froze and tightened with horror. No… this couldn't be happening. She'd been walking in the forest not so long ago – walking to freedom. She couldn't be sitting here in this room that looked so much like the master guestroom of the Zuru estate, across from the leader of the Syndicate.

"How rude of me," he said suddenly. "Inviting a lady into my room and not even offering her a refreshment. Would you like a drink?"

"No," Sakura replied stolidly, though her voice sounded weak and dry as if she'd been asleep for a long time. She didn't know much of what the hell was going on, but she knew she didn't accept drinks from the number one enemy of Konoha. With the spate of poisonings around this place she just couldn't trust a drink she hadn't poured herself.

"Are you sure? You look awfully rough and I'm sure you've spent a number of days on the road now. You have to take it easy, you know. So much activity is not good for a baby… that's why I've brought you back here. You're safe now."

Sakura's eyes jerked up to Karasu, her lips pressed together. "I left this place because I was in more danger here than anywhere else," she pointed out. "The Zuru family would rather see me dead than give birth."

"_Far_ from it," he assured her, leaning back on his hands and – she noticed – brushing aside the frogs just enough so they covered the sketch. "I've convinced Lord and Lady Zuru to reconsider their perspective. Aren't I considerate?

The answer to that was a bit too obvious to be polite. "Then why am I here?" she whispered. "If you convinced them to spare me, why return me to them…"

"I brought you here because you and I are going to be very good for one another."

"You brought me here against my will," Sakura said dubiously. "I don't… I don't even remember how I got here."

"A body transfer jutsu. I won't bore your pretty little mind with the details, I'm sure you wouldn't understand them anyway," he remarked to her cheerfully. "But over such great distance is a strain on the body and to protect you I had to place you in a trance."

Sakura frowned sceptically but held her tongue. It wouldn't pay to lose her temper in this situation. She had to play it cool and simple, as if she were nought but an ignorant maid who knew nothing of genjutsu or transfer jutsu. "I would rather be on my way home," she said quietly.

"I wouldn't bet on that," he said dismissively. "Terrible accidents can befall a helpless little girl such as yourself when she's out there wandering alone. Really, I don't know what Kakashi was thinking of, abandoning you like that. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't rescued you when I had?"

Sakura's mouth nearly dropped open at his unabashed audacity. _Rescued_ her? He was mocking her. He couldn't truly believe she was _so_ dumb that she'd believe such crap? Maybe she'd played the simple maid card too well?

"Now you are here for a reason," he went on. "I think you and I can both agree you're in a very unenviable position. How old are you?"

He'd asked before, but he'd obviously forgotten. "Twenty," she said. "I turn twenty-one later this month."

"Do you think you're ready to start a family?"

There was no way Sakura could answer that honestly without walking straight into the trap he was laying. She opted for a vague kind of shrug instead.

"You're young, the father is…absent, and you have your whole life ahead of you. Do you really want to be enslaved as the mother to _that_ man's child for the rest of your life? Do you really want to live with the fact that every time you look at your child's face, you will see the face of your rapist looking back?"

Sakura looked down at her hands, contriving to pretend this was even an issue to her. She worried about how much of the father and his family would be present in her son, but not for the reasons Karasu assumed.

"Adoption must have crossed your mind," he cajoled.

"Yeah…"

"And why not? It would be an ideal solution to your troubles. You don't have to raise a baby you don't want, and you don't have to drown it in the lake either," he told her cheerfully.

She winced. Trust Karasu to come up with the third solution no one needed to hear.

"Let's cut to the chase," he went on. "Certain events have transpired and certain heirs to this estate have expired. Things being what they are, your child is now the only descendant of Zuru Toshio, and his parents have decided to do you a favour; they'll take that ghastly brat off your hands for you and give you a large sum of money to take back to your family. Everyone wins – especially the baby."

Then it was just as Kakashi had said. The Zuru family now wanted an heir about as badly as they didn't want one before, and Sakura didn't think she was better off. What was worse? Facing the possibility that she and/or the baby would be killed, or the possibility that they'd take it from her as if it was one of their own?

"I suppose they plan to give him as balanced and moral an upbringing as they gave their other children," Sakura said dryly.

If Karasu detected the sarcasm, he ignored it. "Most likely, yes. The kid will be rich, you will be childless and free to leave the estate, and finally I'll have my cousin back. You have rather hogged him."

Sakura didn't believe for a second she'd be leaving this estate alive under these terms. If the Zuru family wanted her baby, it would still be most convenient to kill her once she had served her purpose. She lifted her chin. "And if I say no?"

Karasu's eyes slid half-shut as he observed her with a mild smile. "You won't say no."

Because he wouldn't let her, was the silent warning. She had no more a choice in this matter than she'd had a choice in coming back to the estate. If she didn't play along, the thinly veiled façade of civility would drop and she would finally be acknowledged as the prisoner she'd been all along. As refreshingly honest as it might be to see all the cards laid out on the table at last, her chances were better if she kept up with the charades. Karasu was difficult enough to converse with when he was playing nice. She didn't want to see how much harder it was to get around him when he wasn't.

"How much money would I be getting?" she asked simply.

His smile widened. "Enough to live like Lady Zuru for the next ten years."

"Do I still have to work while I'm here?" She kept her expression plain and slightly vacant. Let him think she was nothing more than a greedy, lazy serving girl who wouldn't think twice about selling a baby. Wealthy privileged people like the Zurus and Karasu were all the same with their prejudices, thinking the poorer underclass had no pride or scruples.

"You shall live like a princess while you're here," Karasu told her smoothly. "I've already arranged for you to have the second best room in the guest wing."

The one next to _his _room?

"All your meals shall be brought to you, as fine as anything the lord and lady are dining on. You'll be assigned your own maid to see to all your personal needs. Won't that be nice?" he beamed at her.

He'd just laid out all the terms of her prison sentence. She swallowed hard. "I don't want special treatment," she tried to insist. "I would rather carry on here as I did-"

"That won't be acceptable. It's too dangerous for you to remain among the staff – there's a poisoner about, don't you know? And Kakashi is no longer here to provide you your… protection."

Sakura stiffened. "He's not here?"

His smile widened. "Nope. He's left the estate. He won't be bothering you anymore."

God, no. As much as she'd always wanted and _needed_ him away from this place in order to escape, she knew she stood no chance alone now. He thought she was on her way back to Konoha, safe and sound. Had he already resigned himself to exile?

"What's your answer?" Karasu prompted. "You're happy to give up the child on condition you're well taken care of, right?"

Sakura closed her eyes in shame. But she _had_ to play along. "Yes."

"Good girl. It's a shame you won't have a hand in raising this baby. You really are going to be one hell of a mother… one day perhaps." He looked at her lost, pale face and seemed to take a little pity. He picked up one of the origami figures on the table and placed it in her hand. "Have a frog. Don't look so depressed."

It wasn't something she could help right now. Of course, he didn't know she had no intention of giving up this baby to the care of the people who had created a monster like Toshio. She was leaving here with the baby, or not at all. She knew she wasn't exactly mother of the year material, but even a life with her was better than a life in this place. So she just offered Karasu a wan smile and wondered if her next plan to escape would be the one that finally got her killed.

"Isn't it nice we have that sorted?" Karasu said pleasantly as he stood and looked down at her like a benevolent guardian. "I'll post guards outside your room to make sure no unsavoury characters think of hurting you."

Prison guards, he meant. Sakura nodded heavily.

Karasu stood slowly with an air of absolutely triumph, still beaming down at her proudly in a smile that was confusingly believable. "But," he said, "before I forget…"

His hand snapped out and grabbed her around the face.

* * *

Kakashi wiped a mixture of sweat and condensation out of his eye. The whole side of his face was burning with pain around his broken cheekbone, and while he knew Uncle Eno could fix the break almost as quickly as Sakura could, he didn't want to go back before finding something to make this damn trek through darkness and mud worthwhile. Pakkun exploded into existence beside his foot, wedged in a shrub of clover-fern. "I'm here," he said to Kakashi, in case the man hadn't noticed.

"Did you find anything?" he asked.

"Trees, bushes, rushes, water, mushrooms, fishes, frogs, turtles, snakeskins-"

"Anything to help find out what the hell Karasu is up to," he reiterated testily as he looked out across the lake below, scrutinising the bank. He'd been combing the circumference for over three hours now and he was barely a quarter of a way around it. So far nothing unusual had leapt out at him, save for a variety of local monkeys and a few enormous, wild pigs who smelt even worse than he did. Not even repeated dives turned up anything interesting beyond a couple of distant vibrations of a large underwater creature who dwelled at a murky, pitch-black depth Kakashi could barely fathom. Perhaps the local superstitions about monsters in the lake weren't so empty after all. But as far as finding out Karasu's secret jutsu was… he was still in the dark.

"Do you smell anything odd?" he asked Pakkun hopefully.

The dog scented the air. "Smells like… trees, water, birds and big animals. What am I supposed to be smelling?"

"I've no idea."

In all, there wasn't much to go on besides what little Kakashi had mentioned under the influence of Sakura's concocted truth serum, the odd mutterance when no one thought he was listening, and his own gut feeling which rarely led him wrong. He'd already scoped Karasu's room weeks ago, searching for evidence of this jutsu that Karasu had babbled about as he'd been plied with sake and drugs, the one he said Iwa had given him as payment for the Syndicate's services. But as was usually the case, Karasu kept all his plans and all his information stored in his head. If there had ever been any documentation of his plans, they would have been destroyed a long time ago to prevent people like Kakashi from doing just what he was doing now.

Kakashi sat down on a tree stump with a sigh, running a finger morbidly over his swollen face.

Pakkun panted in his direction. "Give it up and get that healed already. The lake won't go anywhere and Karasu won't advance his plans in the time it takes for you to mend your bones."

He was probably right, as he usually was. And perhaps he was going about this the wrong way after all? He was out here looking for evidence on his own, but maybe his own family knew more about Karasu's plans than they let on.

Dismissing Pakkun, he started back towards the house in search of his uncle. The man was actually his father's uncle, making Eno a great uncle, but everyone including those not directly related to him called him 'Uncle'. It betrayed a certain fondness everyone had for the oldest member of the Hatake clan, which was at odds with the forced servile attitude the younger branch family members held when they addressed Karasu with the same family title.

He tracked down his uncle in the crane wing by following the telltale scent of a particularly sweet kind of smoke until he came upon the man on the balcony outside his room, rolling a cigarette that was probably illegal in most countries.

"I was wondering when you'd be along," Eno said. "Little birds have been telling me that fool Karasu has been pretending he's a common thug. Has no one ever told him that you keep people in line by earning their respect and being a good leader, not by belting them."

Kakashi sat down next to him, and in stature his great uncle was much smaller and frailer. It was difficult to contemplate that back when Kakashi's grandfather had ruled the clan, this man had been a formidable warrior perhaps beyond even his own ability. And yet now Eno relaxed in the shade on hot days, sent his grandchildren on errands for slippers, and rolled peculiar cigarettes.

If Kakashi lived to be ninety too, this was probably how he'd end up too.

"You say that like I didn't deserve it," he reprimanded his uncle.

"You shouldn't have let him hit you," Eno said, ignoring him. "He was risking you hitting back – and then he would have been sorry!"

"Would he?" Kakashi hummed indifferently. He'd always dismissed the idea that those born first were the ones most naturally gifted. Being the legitimate heir did not make Kakashi stronger, though they'd never fought or sparred or otherwise tested their strength against each other over the years. Sometimes when people were evenly matched they would fight constantly to assert dominance, as Naruto and Sasuke had when they were children, but Kakashi had lost his competitive streak early in life when the loss of his primary childhood rival had brought the utter pointlessness of such pride into painful focus, and if Karasu had any competitiveness in him he didn't show it.

The answer to the question of who was the most talented or gifted was not one he thought either of them wanted to know. Their relationship was better when the balance of power was assumed more or less equal.

"C'mere and I'll heal that for you," Eno said, beckoning him. "You should have come sooner."

"I've had my hands tied."

"And if you'd waited another day I would have had to break your face again to set it right. You don't want to be ugly do you?"

"No?"

Eno handed him the freshly rolled spliff. "Here, smoke this. It's good for pain."

"I don't smoke," Kakashi said, virtuously refusing the offer.

"Rubbish, you were smoking like a chimney when you arrived."

"I quit since then." He shrugged. "Again."

"Ah… I see. You quit for the pregnant girl." Eno's knobbly, arthritic fingers pulled on his chin and tugged down his mask. "Yes, the little birdies have been telling me about that too. They say you're very sweet on her. Tried to save her from the Zuru family. Eloped with her, mm?"

"Mm."

Eno compressed his lips as he examined Kakashi's half-sunken face. "You want to be careful about her."

"Why?" A flash of irritation shot through Kakashi. "Because she's an outsider?"

"Yes. She's a commoner and low-born and not very womanly, and the closer you get to her the more danger she's in from the bigots of this clan."

"Bigots like Karasu?"

Eno spread his palm over Kakashi's cheek and closed his eyes as faint white chakra accumulated around it. The pain doubled, like the bone was being forcefully lifted back into place, and he nearly thought twice about refusing that pain-relieving cigarette.

"Karasu isn't a bigot, Kakashi, far from it." Eno told him as he worked. "He's just jealous."

"Of what?"

"Don't talk while I'm working or you'll have a skewed face forever!" Eno threatened. "Karasu is jealous because you have freedoms he doesn't allow for himself. You dally around with a maid and act like a substitute father to her bastard while Karasu cannot even acknowledge his own children."

"Karasu doesn't have children," Kakashi said though barely moving lips.

"Two, by a civilian, and they're just as demonic as you'd expect them to be. He can't acknowledge them because by the common laws of matrimony they belong to the mother's husband, which isn't him, and by laws of this clan they're too impure to be accepted as part of the upper house anyway. But it doesn't matter. Karasu won't harm your girl, she's too valuable to his plans."

Yes, yes, the plans to replace Toshio. But they were not the plans Kakashi was interested in and they were defunct now. "That's if he ever manages to find her."

"Hidden her, have you?"

"I've done nothing of the sort," Kakashi said shortly, albeit dishonestly. "I hear he has other plans too. For Konoha."

"Shh!" His uncle scolded. "This is the tricky part."

"Haven't your little birdies told you anything about that?"

Giving a groan of exasperation at how the youth of today never listened to the sound advice of their elders, Eno asked, "About what?"

"What Karasu's hiding at the lake."

The prickle of white chakra faded and Eno lowered his hand back to his lap. "That's the best I can do, I'm afraid."

"Why are you dodging the question?"

"Not even a thank you, you ungrateful brat…"

"Thank you," Kakashi said meaningly, which only meant so much after you'd been prompted to say it. He touched his face and noticed it was faintly numb on one side, but the worst of the swelling had been eased and his cheekbone was once again propping up his beautiful face. Most of all he could now speak without sounding like a slurred drunk. "You're a magnificent healer as always."

Eno shrugged modestly. "I do my best, which can't always be enough. You and Sano come in with your broken bones and give an old man a reason to feel useful. Cheers me up after seeing that poor girl up at the doctor's cottage. Nothing I can do for her… poison's always been my weakest point."

Adequately satisfied he'd gotten Kakashi's earnest gratitude, his uncle moved himself to address his question. "Now… what was that about someone hiding something at the what?"

That sounded far less encouraging that Kakashi had hoped. "The lake. Is Karasu up to something around there?"

"There?" Eno sounded surprised. "Well… I don't know about the lake, but sure, he's up to something. When isn't he? Karasu's life is just one conniving plot after another, but this latest one… I think it'll be the death of him."

"You know something about it then?" Kakashi pressed.

Eno shook his head quickly. "No, no. No. But I'm not blind. Karasu keeps things very close to the chest when he can, but when he comes to me with injuries he won't explain – broken ribs, perforated eardrums, burns, and open gashes all over his body – he must think I'm an idiot."

"I haven't noticed any injuries," Kakashi mused.

"I'm a damn good healer, that's why." Eno stuck his personally crafted cigarette and lit it. Sweet, cloying smoke oozed through the air around Kakashi's head. "If he's up to something at the lake, I can't help you. When Iwa paid us, they paid us in forbidden scrolls; highly prized jutsu they can't or won't use themselves, which means they're either too dangerous, they aren't able to utilise them properly, or they stole them from another village who might fancy joining Konoha if they found out. Maybe all of the above. But don't ask me what the jutsu actually are, because I couldn't say. Perhaps you should try to stop him though. If he doesn't kill himself when he fails, I have a feeling he stands to kill a lot of other people when he succeeds."

* * *

When Tsunade rose that morning, it was to discover yet another blackout. None of the electrical appliances in the kitchens of the administration building were working, which she had to admit wasn't a huge loss since rations didn't allow for more than half a bowl of porridge for breakfast these days. She did, however, miss her coffee. It was nearly impossible to function unless she had her morning dose of caffeine to wake her up, and she slumped down to the war room with all the dread of the previous days, now coupled with fatigue and grumpiness.

Interns jumped out of her way, and only Shizune stood her ground even if she looked like she wanted to flee too. "We're working on it," she said before Tsunade could open her mouth, which was what she always said when something went wrong and Tsunade was quickly learning that it made no difference to how fast the problem was resolved anyway.

With a muffled sigh she sank into the Hokage's seat by the great glass map. "Fill me in," she muttered.

"Agents cut the power lines in the 5th distinct exchange last night, and districts one, three, four and five are without power. Twenty five more people have been admitted to hospital suffering complaints consistent with e. coli poisoning and kidney failure. We received a radio transmission two hours ago that Iwa have been pushed back to the border, and the Yamanaka family are still working on the prisoners of war. They haven't found anything more interesting than what the Iwa jonin gave up, but we hope to learn more in time."

Tsunade filed it all away with a weary heart. "Shikamaru," she barked.

The young man stepped away from the glass map. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Boil me up some water and bring me a coffee," she ordered.

"But we don't have any electricity to heat the water," he reminded.

"You can make a fire, can't you?"

The ire in her tone was probably hot enough to boil water alone. As Konoha's top strategist, Shikamaru's shoulders sagged and he sloped out of the room to make his boss a hot drink. With one important matter out of the way, Tsunade turned back to Shizune. "I want you to return to the hospital and get to work healing the latest arrivals. Find out where they've been taking their water from and quarantine the source, and for god's sakes find out if they saw anyone suspicious. We need to nail the people doing this."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Shizune said, nodding. "What do you intend to do?"

"The same thing I do every day. Try to keep on top of it all." She gave a jaw-popping yawn behind one hand as she wagged the other at her assistant. "Go on. I'll be fine once I have my coffee."

Almost as if he'd heard her, Shikamaru hurried back into the room.

"My coffee?" Tsunade asked curiously, knowing that he hadn't been gone long enough to manually boil a pot of water.

"Later," he replied impatiently, which Shizune thought was rather tempting fate with the look Tsunade gave him. "There's a message from the communications headquarters; Captain Yamato has radioed in on schedule."

Suddenly the Hokage was sitting upright as if she'd had ten straight intravenous shots of espresso. She was a picture of clarity and sobriety, and several hands around the room slowed in their work as heads turn curiously in their direction. They were all looking at Shikamaru.

"At least something's going according to plan," Tsunade said darkly, spinning her chair to face the communication console to her right where a young woman sat waiting for the inevitable command. "Can you patch him through?"

"Yes, ma'am," she murmured, turning back to her station to retune the receiver. Even if the lights were out and there wasn't enough electricity for a cup of coffee, at least the vital communications were run off a backup generator. A few moments later the sound of harsh static filled the hushed war room and Tsunade moved to stand over the woman's shoulder.

"Yamato, this is base, we are receiving. Over," she called over the intercom.

"_Yes, hello,"_ came Tenzou's unremarkable reply.

"Please tell me some good news," she sighed.

There was a long pause from his end, which she hoped could be attributed to the distance of the transmission and not just Tenzou trying to come up with a placatory lie. _"We just made it across the border,"_ he answered after a while.

"Just? You're behind schedule," she pointed out, a frown beginning to pinch her face. "What held you up?"

"_Well, the border did,"_ he responded. _"It's as closely guarded as we suspected, and Ame nin aren't easy to bypass with this equipment."_

"Did you make it through alright?"

"_The team is more or less in one piece, yes. No casualties and no detection to our knowledge and we're about half a day away from the Zuru estate as of now."_

"Remember the plan when you get there. Simple reconnaissance. If you find Sakura and you have an opportunity to extract her, do so. As for Kakashi…" she trailed off, because she couldn't quite say it. She'd been the leader of this village for seven years and some regarded her as by far the most no-nonsense Hokage Konoha had ever seen, and yet it hurt to mention one man's name in front of this room full of his former comrades and colleagues, subordinates and admirers, all of them listening openly.

"_We'll deal with him too,"_ Tenzou said, and even though hundreds of miles of static and interference, she could still make out how heavy and tired his voice sounded.

"Thank you," she sighed. "Report in as soon as you reach the estate."

Tenzou disappeared from the airwaves and Tsunade slipped back into her chair wearily, ignoring the look Shizune shot her that was a mixture of worry and insolence. "Stop it," she ordered shortly as the people around the room slowly got back on with their assigned tasks. "It can't be helped."

"And I can't help but feel we've gotten this terribly wrong," Shizune replied tightly.

Tsunade shrugged, but she'd already been wrestling with her conscience for days over this. "I'm sure I already told you to assist the hospital," she said with a pointedness that was hard to miss in her rough-edged state.

Unable to disobey, Shizune just bowed curtly and marched from the room, leaving Tsunade's eyes to wander over to the last person in the room who was still staring at her: Shikamaru. Irritatingly, his expression was not that different from Shizune's. "Coffee," she croaked at him threateningly.

"Don't bark at me, Hokage-sama, I understand perfectly," he said defensively, shrugging with his hands still deep in his pockets. "It has to done."

But she wasn't interested in reassurances. "Coffee," she simply repeated and while she waited for some poor interns to find some matches and ample amounts of firewood with which to satisfy her need for hot water, she let her gaze drift to the glass map and all the red crosses around the location of agents who hadn't been heard from in weeks.

Sakura was now one of them.

Tsunade looked towards the profile pictures staring back at her from the far wall, each connected with a coloured thread to denote connection. There was the new and the old Tsuchikage, linked in blue, and their hierarchy of jonin, top advisors, and general strategists beneath them, names and pictures that had been given up by the Iwa jonin in captivity underneath Konoha.

But Yamanaka had managed to pry more out of that man's head than just the names of his comrades and outdated information. Beside the blue hierarchy of Iwa heads was the scant beginnings of another, marked in red. At the head was a young man with shoulder-length hair like white straw and a mask around the lower half of his face that did nothing to disguise the mocking smile in his eyes. It was an old picture, perhaps taken ten years or more ago when certain people were less cautious or less concerned. Even so there was no real name, location, or origin to go with that name, other than the blunt moniker of 'Karasu'.

There was speculation that this was the same _White Crow _who had been on the cloud rogue nin bingo book some years ago, and while the similarity in name and description was striking, the resemblance to her best jonin was even more so. Especially when both pictures were up on that wall, side by side, connected by thread the colour of blood.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Last Stand_


	37. Last Stand

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Six: Last Stand

* * *

_I know now, I know now, I know now,_

_I'm never going to tell on you._

* * *

The door slid open that morning with a soft scrape of wooden tracks. When Sakura heard that sound her head came up a fraction and only then did she notice crisp sunlight was streaming through the blinds and she'd passed through the whole night without a wink of sleep. She hadn't moved from this spot on the floor where Karasu had left her. There was a luxury canopy bed in the other room, and an enormous lounger stuffed with eiderdown only a few metres away in this one, yet she'd barely registered either of them. She didn't want to _acknowledge_ the pampering she was being offered, because that was one step towards accepting Karasu's terms.

But she couldn't ignore the person who had stepped into the room behind her.

"Sakura?" Kaoru called out timidly, as if she rather thought Sakura was a feral dog who would turn and bite if provoked. She wasn't unwise in that observation, even if Sakura had no grudge against her personally. "Sakura, it's me… Kaoru."

Ordinarily Sakura might have turned and embraced her. If there was one upside to being in this place it was because of friends like this girl and Aki, two people who had made this hell-hole mildly bearable. However, right now Sakura wanted to be alone. She didn't want anyone to see her, _especially_ friends.

"I know you're probably not happy to be back… but… hey… you've upgraded a bit, haven't you?" Kaoru joked thinly, her voice coming closer as she approached. "Um… I'm supposed to wait on you. Food, clothing, you know. You, uh, look like you could do with a bath."

"They won't let me out of this room," Sakura said hollowly, refusing to turn to the maid.

"Yeah… that's why we've brought one up to you."

Before Sakura could protest she heard the heavy tromp of many footsteps behind her, and she turned her head slightly to watch from the corner of her eye the procession of strong footmen walk into the room, carrying between them a large wooden tub and a series of steaming buckets of water. Sakura turned away again as she heard the splash of each bucket being emptied into the bath. She didn't want to catch a glimpse of the Hatake guards just beyond the door.

Kaoru's hand touched her shoulder once the men had filed out again. "You'll feel much better once you've washed and you're wearing clean clothes and you're all pretty again," she cajoled.

The problem was Sakura didn't want to wash and wear clean clothes. She didn't want to take these clothes off at all, ever, for as long as she could help it. Above her, Kaoru fretted. She wasn't the most forceful friend and Sakura's obstinate silence was hard to deal with even for those who had the most experience with it. "Come on, let's at least wash your hair. It's all dirty and stringy."

Sakura wasn't in the least concerned with the condition of her hair.

"Maybe you'd just like to change? I've brought you some new clothes… they're really nice. You'll look like Lady Zuru when she was young!"

"Why would I want to look like that?" Sakura demanded. "If they want to truss me up like a turkey before a feast, I'm not going to help them. I'd rather sit here and starve than accept anything from them!"

"But… what about the baby?"

Sakura clenched her fists into her skirt. "Well…" Her bravado ran out there. She couldn't starve herself, not when she was eight months pregnant, and that wasn't exactly a foolproof method of escaping anyway. If only she still had Kakashi, who had taken her hand and walked out of the estate with her so confidently no one had questioned it. It might not be that easy a second time, but without Kakashi and his authority within the clan, she didn't know how she was supposed to get out of this one…

Not only that, but she _missed_ him. A few months ago she would have been more than happy to see the back of the man, but he'd only gone and wormed his way back into her heart again like some kind of awful tropical parasite. She was almost willing to promise on her mother's grave that she would never tell anyone about his mixed allegiances – as long as he didn't abandon her in this hell-hole of a rainforest. It only added to her desolation, to think that she was now so weak she _needed _the help of a village traitor, and so pathetic as to actually have fallen back in love with him... if she'd ever fallen out of love at all.

And yet if he walked in the door now, Sakura didn't know if she could face him either, the way she could barely face Kaoru now.

"Please, Sakura," the other girl begged. "I'll get in trouble if you don't let me serve you…"

She wondered if that was a genuine plea or if Kaoru knew her well enough now to figure out which buttons to press, because while Sakura was more than happy to make her own life difficult to annoy Karasu, she wasn't willing for others to get pulled down with her. "Fine," she murmured, standing on stiff muscles with a little help from Kaoru. "Just a quick bath."

But when she turned towards her, Kaoru visibly recoiled with a gasp. "Sakura – your face-"

Sakura ducked her head self-consciously, letting her hair fall across the right side of her face to obscure the vivid red marks that ran from the middle of her forehead across her eye, nose, and cheek to stop at her jaw. The bruising had already started, turning her face into an angry canvas of red and purple. "Don't worry about it," she said thickly. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Kaoru ignored her dismissive tone. "What _is_ that?" she said, staring at her in horror. "Is that… words? I can't read kanji… god, Sakura, what happened?"

"Do you know what a jutsu is," Sakura asked as she turned away and started pushing the dress off her shoulders to get ready for her bath.

"It's one of those things ninja have, right?"

"Yes. This is one to keep track of me. Karasu put it on me last night… so he'll know where I am at all times," she told her quietly.

"It looks painful," Kaoru whispered.

"It is." Karasu's handwriting was old-fashioned and sprawling compared to Kakashi's, and he wasn't nearly as concerned about inflicting pain when he planted the chakra tag on her, because she couldn't remember Kakashi ever burning and bruising her as much as this.

"What does it say?" Kaoru asked with quiet, grim curiosity.

"It's Karasu's name," Sakura muttered.

But Kaoru just looked confused. "No… I've seen Karasu's name written down on the roster board. It doesn't look like that."

"I imagine it's his real name," she responded darkly, but Kaoru couldn't read it and she wasn't interested enough to go examine her newly disfigured face in a mirror to find out what it was. It was enough to know that she would be bearing this mark for the rest of her life if Karasu didn't obligingly remove it or obligingly drop dead, neither of which she suspected would happen any decade soon. The most she could hope for was to get out of this estate with her life, period. Wanting anything more than that right now was too ambitious.

"Hey, Kaoru," she murmured, accepting the girl's support as she stepped into the wooden bath tub and sank down till the water came over her stomach. "I need you to take a message out to Ame for me."

"We're not to leave the estate anymore," Kaoru told her. "If you have a letter to send, you have to give it to Kenzou."

"Kenzou?"

"Hatake Kenzou."

"Ah." Sakura idly wondered if Lord Zuru had any say over the affairs of this estate and its workforce whatsoever anymore. Her mind kept on working, even as Kaoru poured shampoo in her hair and lathered it up into a white, frothy turban. Some of it was trickling down to sting the raw tattoo on her face. She winced. "Then can you do something else for me?"

Kaoru, always eager to please, was quick to say, "Anything."

Sakura took a deep breath. "I need you to go to the doctor's office and steal some drugs."

Kaoru's sudded hands dropped from her hair. "_Steal?_" she cried.

Any louder and the guards would hear. Sakura swivelled and pressed her fingers to her lips warningly so that if Kaoru insisted on having a fit of moral outrage, she would at least know to do it quietly. Bashfully, the maid lowered her voice. "Why do you need medication? Are you sick?"

"Not medication," Sakura told her quietly. "Drugs. Sedatives. As much as you can carry."

Kaoru openly stared at her. "Uh… what are you going to do with it all?"

Fingers drummed on the side of the wooden tub as she wondered how to answer that without raising too much suspicion. "I'm going to use it to get out of here," she said simply. "They can't stop me leaving if they're all drugged, can they?"

But Kaoru looked worried. "Is that possible?" she asked dubiously. "How much do you know about drugs?"

"Enough."

"They said the poisoner would have to had known a lot about drugs," Kaoru said quietly.

Sakura turned to her sharply. "You have to believe me, Kaoru, I had nothing to do with that."

"No... I know." Kaoru seemed certain as she looked back. "It couldn't have been you, because the attacks continued after you left."

"Toshio," Sakura whispered. It was a good thing Kaoru didn't know too much about poison delivery techniques or she wouldn't have been so quick to rule out Sakura as the poisoner just because she was absent; there were plenty of ways to kill someone without being there... poison tipped tacks slipped into a spare pair of shoes was a good method, for instance. But perhaps it wasn't wise to enlighten her on this.

"Toshio and Yui."

Sakura's eyes widened. "Yui?" she breathed. "She's dead?"

"No, but she got real sick about a week after you left," Kaoru told her. "She nearly died, especially since the Doctor's gone. Aki's looking after her up at the cottage."

Sakura felt like she'd missed something. "Sorry, the _doctor's_ gone?"

"Yes." Now it was Kaoru's turn to look surprised. "He disappeared the same time as you... we just kind of assumed he went with you and Kakashi-san."

Sakura shook her head. "No... I saw him the day we left. He didn't seem like he was planning to go anywhere..."

The two girls sat in a sudden uncomfortable silence, both wondering what would cause a man to just disappear off the face of the planet like that. Sakura remembered that on the day she'd left she had passed Karasu heading off in the direction of the doctor's cottage. Then Sakura remembered the lake outside that cottage. The deep, _deep_ lake.

She reached out to lay her hand over Kaoru's "When I leave, you're coming with me, ok? It's not safe here."

"Where am I going to go?" Kaoru spluttered.

"Anywhere you like – just get out of here while you still can."

"Oh, no one's going to kill me," she said dismissively. "And I was just beginning to enjoy it without Toshio around anymore."

"Kaoru, _please-"_

"I'll get you your drugs, Sakura, but don't ask anything more of me. This is my home, and even if you told me it was going to be attacked by a band of savage Konoha nin tomorrow, I'd still be here to scrub the floors for the Zuru family," she said firmly, pulling her hand away from Sakura's to start scrubbing her hair again.

"Even if the Hatake clan take over this place and the Zuru family disappears too?" Sakura asked evenly.

Kaoru's hands hesitated. "They're not bad people... some of them are quite kind to the staff."

Sakura sighed and let Kaoru dunk her head under the water to rinse off the suds, and her face stung all over again. There was still time to convince the other girl to get out of this crazy estate before it was too late, because organising a breakout from beneath the watchful eye of an elite ninja clan was going to take time and careful planning.

Sakura just hoped the baby would refrain from being born until then.

* * *

As Kaoru made her way to the Doctor's cottage, she tried her best to look like she wasn't off to commit a crime. This, however, only served to make her look all the more guilty.

"You there!"

Kaoru flinched heavily and cringed away from the source of the booming voice across the garden. A woman with white hair was standing on the porch of the onsen, her shoes held in her hand. She was frowning at Kaoru. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"N-Nothing!" Kaoru stammered. "I swear-"

"Good. Then you can clean the onsen. Someone made a complete mess of it this morning. I'm not putting a toe in there until all that black stuff is gone." The Hatake woman shuddered and drifted away, fully expecting her orders to be carried out.

Kaoru hesitated – did she dare put Sakura's orders before the other woman's? They were both equally scary and equally ranking now that Karasu had told her in no uncertain terms that she was to 'serve Sakura as if she was our sister'. But then he probably didn't think she'd hand out errands for powerful drugs, and if he ever found out...?

There was nothing she could do. Sakura's mission would have to wait until she cleaned the onsen – and indeed someone _had_ made quite the mess in there. She spent the better part of the afternoon scrubbing black mould from between the tiles around the pool, and her hands were red raw three hours later when she clattered back out into the garden and rushed off back towards the path that led around the lake, and ultimately to the doctor's cottage.

She hoped dearly that she wouldn't meet anyone else along the way, but once again, the moment she thought it she saw someone coming towards her down the path. A servant, judging from his clothes, but not one she recognised. It was odd, because she thought she knew _everyone_ in this place by now, unless he was a new arrival. As she passed him she noticed he was regarding her just as warily as she was regarding him, and she thought for a moment that he too must have been up to something wicked. So she wished him luck, in the hopes he was wishing the same for her.

She was trembling slightly when she finally arrived at the cottage. She knocked on the door and waited, hoping from one to foot to try and disguise her nerves. Aki opened the door and looked at her sceptically. "Are you cold?" she wondered.

"Too much caffeinated tea!" Kaoru bundled inside and blurted her excuse for being there. "I've come to see Yui."

"Well... she's not in any condition to talk. She passes in and out," Aki sighed. "She was up and taking food yesterday, but today she's barely conscious of where she is."

"Oh," Kaoru said quietly. Although she didn't like Yui as much as Aki did, she felt a little sorry for her. She would have been sent home days ago like Himiko, only Yui didn't have a home to go to. This was it, and at the end of the day, only Aki was willing to nurse her.

"This way," Aki lead her down the hall towards the spare rooms in the back of the house where Himiko had once lain. She opened a door and allowed Kaoru inside, and a familiar fug of sickness washed over them. On the cot inside lay a pale, narrow figure, even thinner than when Kaoru had last seen her. All that beauty that she'd taken so much pride in was gone, replaced by a sallow mask of sunken cheeks and discoloured flesh.

Yui was barely alive. Her breath rasped with effort and though her eyes were half open, she didn't look towards the door. She didn't appear to have noticed anyone had arrived.

When Toshio had been poisoned, Yui had been adamant that Sakura was responsible – one last act of revenge before she'd eloped with Hatake Kakashi, she'd said. But then this had happened, and Kaoru wondered if the reason she was still barely conscious was because she didn't want to hear 'I told you so'.

"Um... maybe I should come back when she's feeling better?" Kaoru said awkwardly.

"If you like," Aki sighed, and Kaoru realised that if she came back it would be more to keep Aki company than Yui.

"A-And I – I was told to fetch something from the surgery," Kaoru stammered on. "Um, for your uncle."

"Oh?" Aki shrugged. "Ok. Go ahead, it's not locked."

Kaoru turned stiffly and let herself into the doctor's surgery, acutely certain Aki would know she was lying, because she almost certainly wouldn't approve of any plan to drug her clan.

She looked at the piece of paper Sakura had stuffed under her sash and tried to read the name written on it. Though it was indecipherable to her, she began wandering along the cabinets full of bottles, trying to match the symbols on the paper to the symbols on the labels. Every now and then she shot a guilty look over her shoulder at the door, half expecting Aki to be standing there staring at her suspiciously, but there was no one around to see when she finally found the matching bottles, or see when she grabbed every last one and dropped them into the pockets within her sleeves until they bulged and jangled like marbles.

With a wince, she tiptoed back to the front door. "I'm going now!" she called to Aki.

"I'll see you later!" the other girl called back without reappearing.

After a second of fumbling with the handle, Kaoru let herself out and all but began to run back down the path around the lake. She had to slow after a while or risk dropping all the bottles, but she was so relieved at getting through the first half of this incredibly difficult and nerve-racking errand that she smiled as she trotted.

Unfortunately, as soon as she saw the man coming towards her, the smile slid away. And from this distance it looked like _Karasu._

Kaoru lowered her eyes and slowed to what she hoped was a less suspicious speed, and she tried to hold her arms behind her so that he wouldn't notice the enormous weight in her pockets. She'd gotten this far, she _couldn't_ be caught. If Hatake Karasu caught her with such quantities of drugs, her life was over.

He was drawing alongside her. He was going to pass her without stopping. Kaoru's heart could have sung and she could have danced a little jig.

Then his hand grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and jerked her so hard she heard the clatter and smash of a dozen little bottles around her feet. Kaoru was frozen, unable to breathe.

"What are you doing with this?" he demanded harshly.

Her mouth worked but no sound came out. Her eyes stared glassily at the grass, her vision blurred by tears. _She was going to die._

"Well?" he demanded again, and when she still could make no answer he released her clothes and spun her around roughly to pull up her arms. "Hand it over. All of it."

Wordlessly, she reached into her pockets and trembling hands deposited the remaining bottles into his open palm, and in her anxiety also gave him the apple she'd been planning to have for a snack later, and a half-finished scrap of embroidery she'd been working on in her spare time.

He promptly handed her back the apple and embroidery and turned the bottles over in his hands. "What use could you possibly have for all this? These are tranquillisers."

Were they? Kaoru had no idea.

"What were you planning on doing with so much tranquilliser?" he asked. But with a second thought he asked instead, "Who told you to get these?"

Kaoru bit her lip. She couldn't say it had been Sakura. That girl was already in so much trouble, she'd never forgive Kaoru for squealing on her now. "No one," she whispered thinly.

"Look at me when you speak to me," he snapped.

She hated it when her employers asked her to do this. It was extremely bad manners for a servant to meet the gaze of their betters as if they were equal, and it was a frequent trick Toshio had liked to use, demanding she look at him then beating her for disrespect when she did, or beating her for disobedience when she didn't.

So it wasn't easy. Her gaze jumped up to his chin and then down again, and then in one brave effort she briefly lifted her eyes to his.

He only had one.

Kaoru as do relieved she could have fainted. "Kakashi-sama..." she whispered.

However much nicer and less confusing he was than Karasu, he still looked angry right now. She couldn't relax just yet, even if he had shown kindness in the past. "These drugs aren't for you, are they?" he asked incredulously.

She shook her head slowly. She didn't want to blamed incorrectly.

"Then who were you bringing these to?"

But she would _not_ betray Sakura.

Kakashi grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. "Someone has been poisoning people on this estate with drugs," he told her harshly. "If I find out you're protecting a murderer-"

"She wouldn't do that! She's never hurt anybody!"

"If that's true, then you have no reason not to tell me," he reasoned.

He must have thought she was stupid. "She can't get into trouble."

"Then I'm taking you to Karasu," he said as he grabbed her arm and began dragging her down the path. "We'll let him deal with this, shall we?"

"NO!" Kaoru protested, digging in her heels and almost toppling over in her effort to resist. "If he finds out, he'll kill her! He's the one who made her do this because of what he did to her!"

Kakashi paused to watch her closely. "What did Karasu do?"

"He..." She searched for the words. "He's imprisoned her. He says she's a guest too, but she's locked in a room with guards and... her face. He did something awful to her face. She never did anything to anyone! _Please_, believe me! It isn't what it looks like."

Slowly, his hand released her arm and she drew back shyly, rubbing her sore wrist. "Where is she?" he asked thickly.

Kaoru remained silent. Although she knew this man cared for Sakura, she couldn't be sure he would forgive this kind of infraction.

"Where is she?" he repeated loudly. "Where is Sakura?"

Her mouth dropped open. "The crane wing... the room closest to the master bedroom."

He turned from her. "Go back to work and don't breathe a word of this to anyone," he barked over his shoulder as he stormed away.

Although he couldn't see her, she sank into a bow anyway with tears rolling free down her cheeks.

* * *

Up in the canopy of the tallest tree, an indignant owl exploded out of its tree in a flurry of feathers, abandoning its daytime roost. The reason why was the man-shaped figure that had splintered away from the trunk and stepped onto the branch beside it, slowly softening and darkening into proper human textures. "Sorry about that," he muttered, crouching low on the branch so as not to shake a single leaf.

Through the trees in the middle distance rose the ornately crafted rooftops of some very old, very pretentious buildings. Tenzou reached into his pocket and lifted a small spyglass to his eye and elongated it until he could make out every speck of moss and lichen growing on each individual roof tile. A corner of the courtyard before the building was _just_ visible through the trees, and from his position he could see a couple of people moving back and forth. Servants. An estate like this probably employed a few hundred people to attend to the house and the vast lands surrounding it.

He carefully lowered the lens and once again surveyed the verdant forest around him. "Nade," he said softly into the air, "what's your position?"

A woman's voice responded in his ear. "_I'm on the western side of the estate, Yamato-taichou. There's a watchtower here with two men in red livery. They look like typical hired swords. Low level. Not a threat."_

"Start looking for a way into the main house. Look for a servant to impersonate, but make sure you aren't seen."

"_Yes, captain."_

"Shiko, where are you right now."

"_North side of the estate, on the south shore of the lake," _another woman replied. _"There's two men out here... I think... Yamato, I think one of them is Kakashi-sempai."_

"Stay out of sight, and do not engage," he warned strictly. "Who's he with?"

"_Another man. Old, rough, beardy... um... he's carrying a spade, I think he's some kind of gardener,"_ she replied. _"I can't hear what they're saying, but I can use a jutsu to eavesdrop if I get closer-"_

"Don't. Just observe for now. If that's Hatake Kakashi, you'll be lucky to get the drop on him without being detected-"

"_They're turning and going – no – wait a minute – wait, wait, wait..."_

"What?" Tenzou waited anxiously.

"_That's not him... that's not Hatake Kakashi. And Taichou, they just disappeared. I can't see them at all – they were just standing there as well."_

"Shiko, withdraw. You might have been seen." Tenzou ordered immediately. He waited for the usual acknowledgement, but nothing came. "Shiko, do you understand your order?"

Her end was utterly silent.

"Shiko?" he called again, but rather uncertainly. He waited a few seconds and then took a deep breath. "Nade, return to the base site and wait there for further orders. I'm going to Shiko's position."

He started to stand but faltered when he heard no answer from his other subordinate. "Nade?" he hissed with growing dread. "Can either of you hear me?"

He looked around the forest, suddenly ill at ease with how tranquil the atmosphere was. The peaceful silence was masking something else. Something terrible.

Instinctively, Tenzou suddenly stepped back towards the tree trunk and let his hand begin to merge with the bark again. He'd only submerged up to his elbow when he heard the faint whistle of something very small and sharp travelling through the air very fast, and felt the jolt as it came to a sudden stop in his back. Tenzou looked down at his chest. The tip of a long handled kunai was poking through his vest, and only then did he begin to feel the pain, and the terrible cold, tearing sensation that radiated beneath his ribs.

He sunk to his knees with a grunt, his arm now trapped inside the tree and the only thing that kept him from falling from this fifty foot high perch. Nimble feet landed on the branch beside him and he heard the rattle of leaves as others landed on a dozen branches nearby. He looked down at the first set of feet, noting the toenails were painted the colour of mercury. When he forced his gaze upwards he noticed the woman's hair was the same shining white and grey. She stared back at him with bald curiosity, as if he was something unidentifiable that she'd found on the bottom of her shoe.

"Careful, Midori," he heard someone call as she reached out and tugged the porcelain mask from his face. She examined the painted patterns and ran her fingers over the faint impression of the village insignia.

"Konoha ANBU?" she blinked at him almost innocently. But from the empty holster on her hip, he could guess she was the one who had thrown the kunai. "What are you doing so far from home?"

Tenzou coughed as the wet, coppery taste of blood began to gurgle up in his lungs. The sharp blade shredded him further with each laboured wretch.

"We'll have to cut his arm off," someone said, pointing to his elbow that was as much wood as it was flesh. "Anyone got a knife?"

"S'alright," said the woman, reaching down to wrap her hand around the one penetrating Tenzou. "There's one right here we can use."

* * *

When the guards looked up to see Kakashi striding along the corridor towards them, the only person they saw was Karasu. It didn't matter how prestigious a clan was or how advanced their training was, even the best ninja in the world could be fooled by a simple first-grade academy Henge, providing it was carried out with confidence and knowledge.

Kakashi didn't much care about that right now. "Get out of the way," he snapped at the men blocking the doorway of the guest room, shooting for the Karasu-in-apeshit-mode, which wasn't that far from how he was really feeling at that moment. The two men jumped aside like trained dogs, and one of them even obligingly opened the door before he could just smash his way through the wood and paper.

The room he entered was certainly grand. If the one beside it was fit for a king, this one was at least fit for a queen – and indeed, there she was, sitting on her bed in a royal red kimono. She was as much an ornament in that room as the arrangement of orchids under the window. But a vandalised one.

He stopped dead on the threshold. Because before he'd noticed the colour of her clothes and the state of the room, or even the fixed glare she levelled at him the moment he entered, he saw the vivid scarlet words splashed across half her face like a badly drawn tattoo.

Kakashi clenched his fists at his side. "Leave us," he snapped at the men closing the door behind him.

"What?" one of them asked, confused.

"Go take a walk around the lake or something," he told them.

After a beat of confused silence, they muttered obediently, slid the door shut and their footsteps faded away along the empty corridor. Kakashi went straight to the wide window and looked out at the roof opposite where two branch family kunoichi were reclining, comparing sword lengths. They jumped into something imitating professionalism when they saw him. "Find something else to do," he ordered them as well, ignoring their stunned looks as he slammed the shutters and plunged the chamber into a gloom.

When he turned, Sakura had gotten to her feet with her hands held protectively over her belly. That kimono made her look even more enormous than she actually was, but he thought it wouldn't be wise to mention that given the furious look she was also wearing. "What do you plan to do now that you've sent everyone away?" She sounded concerned and he didn't blame her. No one should ever be relaxed if Karasu wanted privacy with them. It often preceded a murder.

Confident there were no more prying eyes, Kakashi dropped the Henge. He watched the expressions on Sakura's face shift from anger to shock, and her face rapidly paled. "You're supposed to be on your way back to Konoha," he whispered, trying not to sound as furious as he was, because none of it was aimed at her. The chakra tag on her face looked as horrifying and ugly as it did absurd, as if a child had gone to town on her with a scalpel, and _he_ was the one who had _taught_ Karasu this jutsu.

"I thought you'd gone," she said, looking half-stricken. "Karasu told me you had left."

He went to her and caught her in his arms, half out of fear that she would faint dead away if he didn't. You couldn't tell with pregnant women. Though she didn't swoon, for a long time they certainly held each very tightly as if they couldn't quite believe that they'd found each other and didn't want to risk parting again. "I'm so glad," he heard her whisper, and he couldn't have agreed more.

Yet another grim feeling settled over a myriad of others weighing on his shoulders. "He's trying to keep us apart. He knows I'll free you." Which meant his cousin already suspected him of working against him.

Sakura's eyes closed briefly and she swayed ever so slightly in place against him. "It's no good," she said. "He's tagged me. If I move from this room he'll know it."

"So you planned to drug him?"

Her eyes snapped on him again.

Kakashi drew back and reached into his pocket and threw a handful of bottles down onto the bed. "I found these on your friend, Kaoru. Getting civilians to commit espionage for you is suicide, Sakura. If anyone other than me had come across her, she'd be suffering interrogation right now and how long would it be before they came for you, thinking you were either a poisoner or – worse – a kunoichi?"

"I was desperate!" she hissed. "I can't stay here much longer. When this baby is born, Karasu plans to give it to the Zuru family so that in twenty years they'll have another spoilt monster on their hands! And if they don't kill me as soon as they cut the cord, they'll kill me if I try and fight back, so don't lecture me about putting myself in danger! I'm already in it up to my eyeballs."

She sat down heavily on the bed and stroked her belly fretfully. "If Karasu's trying to keep us apart, you should go," she went on. "He shouldn't know that you've found me. We have to keep ahead-"

Kakashi shook his head. "He'll guess anyway. The guards will come across him soon and they'll report he sent them away from their posts. But he couldn't think he could keep us a secret from each other forever... this estate isn't big enough. He's just trying to stall for time..."

"Why?" she whispered, frowning at him.

"I don't know." He looked out the window, past the outer buildings of the estate to look at the fragments of the lake visible through the trees. It was shining gold in the late afternoon sunlight. "He's planning something... but perhaps he's closer to enacting it than I thought."

"The lake," Sakura blurted.

Kakashi turned to her sharply. "What?"

She blushed a little. "Sasuke said it when we were leaving Ame. He said Karasu was planning something, and it had to do with the lake, and... he said when I got back to Konoha I should tell everyone to evacuate immediately."

"He hates Konoha, why would he warn-"

"Because not even Sasuke would enjoy seeing a whole village of innocent people killed," she burst out. "I believe him. He tried to warn me about _you_ too, remember? He was right on that, why not this?"

"Karasu doesn't have near enough power to cause an evacuation," Kakashi remarked incredulously. He inwardly shuddered with the memory of the last time the Hokage had ordered a village-wide evacuation, because that had been the day more than half the village was turned to dust and rubble. It had also been the day he'd died. If anything like that were to happen again... well, poor Tenzou might just die to spite everyone who would dare ask him to rebuild.

"I don't think Sasuke was exaggerating," Sakura said quietly.

"Excuse me if I don't assign _all_ my trust in him like you," he retorted. "He killed Reika after all."

Sakura went very still and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry."

Kakashi just sighed and turned away.

"He did it to save my life. She was about to kill me, Kakashi, I didn't know what else to do..." She stared at his back. "You believe me, don't you?" she asked gingerly.

Kakashi couldn't bear hearing that tone. He sat down on the bed sharply and pulled her into a tight embrace, the one his body had been crying out for since he'd woken up alone on the floor of their hotel room in Ame. Since he'd found Reika's body and known he owed Sasuke his own life for saving Sakura's. Since he'd embraced her in that tiny hamlet village, thinking he'd never get the chance to hold her again or tell her all the things that needed to be said. "It's my fault," he whispered, tucking her head under his chin. "She wouldn't have had it in for you if I hadn't tried to pass you off as my lover. I know you wouldn't kill anyone unless you had absolutely no choice."

Sakura remained silent within his arms. Then she asked, "Can I kill Karasu, please?"

"No."

"So I have to live with this thing on my face for the rest of my life?" she bit out.

His arms tightened around her fractionally. "No. I'll make him take it off."

"He won't take this off just because you ask-"

"I didn't say I'd ask him," Kakashi interrupted. "I said I'd make him. If he wants an heir for this estate, he'll just have to let it fall to the twins; they're just as much part of this clan as Toshio was. He doesn't strictly need a _male_ heir at least, and he has bigger things to worry about at the moment than you... especially once I find out what the hell he's doing up at the lake and start making trouble for him."

Sakura leaned into him silently, breathing steadily. "I'm sorry," she said earnestly.

"What for?"

"For running away from you in Ame. I thought... once you knew the fighting had started again, you'd never let me return to Konoha. I was scared that if you were going to choose between your family and me, I couldn't win..."

"Sakura," he breathed, his hand curling into the soft hair behind her nape, "_you_ are my family. You're going to be the mother of my child, how can I consider you anything else? Everything I've done has been for you. I'd sell Karasu down the river in a heartbeat for you. As it is, I'm going to beat the shit out of him one way or another."

She looked up at him and the sight of her face nearly broke his heart again. He wasn't particularly skilled in healing but what he knew was better than nothing, and so made the best of all the medical jutsu he'd attempted to copy off her in the past and raised his hand to her cheek. Sakura closed her eyes, trusting him absolutely as the white chakra eased a little of the swelling and turned the characters of the tag a duller shade of red. He couldn't remove it. Only Karasu could do that, and left to their own devices chakra tags usually didn't fade for years. Not even clumsy, careless jobs like this one.

"Thank you," she whispered, wrinkling her nose to test his handiwork. "Of all the things I miss here, I think I miss my healing the most. If I was at full strength, that poisoner wouldn't know what hit him."

Kakashi frowned. "Is that sick girl one of your friends?"

"Yui?" Sakura pursed her lips sideways. "Not really..."

"Oh."

"Actually, I _really_ don't like her," she sighed. "But no one deserves that, and I'm scared someone like Kaoru or Aki is next. Or me."

"Once you get back to Konoha, I'll get the clan to move elsewhere. Your friends might find their poison problem will miraculously disappear once the family of criminals, assassins, and poison experts moves out," he told her dryly.

"What if I want you to come home with me?" she asked tentatively.

His breath escaped him slowly. "I can't... you know what would happen."

"Not if I don't tell anyone." Her fingers caught in his vest and she sat upright to look him dead in the eye, as serious as he'd ever seen her. "No one has to know. We can go back together."

He shook his head. Perhaps back when Iwa had withdrawn from the conflict and the Syndicate had the rug effectively swept out from under its feet, keeping quiet about his family had been feasible for Sakura. Why tell tales on a group that was no longer a threat? But the situation had changed. If Karasu was planning something... something on a scale Kakashi hadn't seen from him before, how could he expect Sakura to cover for that man and his mad schemes on Kakashi's behalf? "I can't expect you to protect my family for me during a war, Sakura. What if they find out? Do you know what they do to traitors? I can't let that happen to you... not for my sake, please."

"I don't want to be alone," she almost pleaded. "This baby scares me to death – I _can't_ do it all by myself. I need you with me, Kakashi."

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I have to stay with Karasu to keep him from doing any more damage, and you have to go home. That's the way it has to be."

Hot tears were leaking out the corner of her left eye and running across the ugly tattoo. "Didn't you enjoy it in Ame?" she asked. "When it was just the two of us and we did all that dumb, boring stuff together, like shopping and eating and watching the TV?"

"It wouldn't be like that in Konoha."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "It can be. If we stop Karasu, we can go home _together,_ and we can raise the baby _together._"

It wasn't often that he struggled for composure, but Sakura always made things difficult for him. He wanted nothing more than to go back home, back to his ordinary life, and start supporting Sakura through this properly. She dangled the offer for him even though they both knew it was impossible. His fingers dragged over the soft skin of her unmarked cheek and he swallowed hard.

Even knowing it was impossible didn't stop him from wanting it more than anything. He closed his eyes and let his forehead drop against hers. "If we were together, it couldn't just be 'shopping, eating, and watching TV'," he said roughly. "It would have to be more than that."

He felt her nod. Her breathing was coming short and fast, either from the effort to hold back tears or something else. "I know. I want... I want more than that too."

Kakashi held back on a groan and ran his hand over her arm, comforting her, but also because he just needed to touch her. "You know it can't happen."

She gave a soft whimper. "Give me a chance," she begged, and tilted her head just enough to press her lips against his masked ones.

A little lost memory stirred inside him. She'd kissed him before, hadn't she, not so long ago? And she'd been crying then too, about to run from him forever. He couldn't bear that happening again, even though he knew he had to. The kiss lingered for a moment, gentle and pleading, until he embraced her tightly and laid his cheek alongside hers.

"I'm going to get Karasu," he whispered in a low voice into her ear. "I'm going to make him undo this tag he's put on you, and then I'm going to get you out of here. When you get back to Konoha, you're going to tell Tsunade _everything. _Don't leave anything out. Don't give them a reason to believe you're covering for me or the Syndicate. She'll probably send people here, but by the time they arrive we'll be gone."

"Then what?" she breathed, everything about her was wound tight with anticipation and dread.

"Then..." He cast around for the next plan, but he was as lost as her. "I'll write to you."

Sakura let out a short furious scream and pushed against him. "I don't want letters!" she raged. "I want you!"

"We'll see each other again," he said, but he didn't think he sounded particularly sure of himself, and neither did Sakura.

"When? How many months? How many years? Is your son going to be ten before you see him, or fifteen? _What?_"

He tried to reach for her shoulder but she knocked his hand away. The great pendulum that was her mood had swung the other way, and now she sat silently glowering and fuming while her hands moved in restless circles over her belly. She only stilled when his palm pressed over one of them.

"Konoha comes before us," he said evenly.

Her unreadable gaze jerked to his.

"We have to think of our friends, and our colleagues, and all the villagers that trust in us to protect them. They have to come first, before we think of ourselves. You have to warn Konoha and I have to stop Karasu. That's how it has to be."

Her eyes slowly lowered to her lap again. He knew she understood the reality of their situation just as well as he did; it was just a bitter pill to swallow. Kakashi stood, but Sakura's hand suddenly snagged around his arm. "Where are you going?" she asked uneasily.

"To find Karasu," he said simply. The sooner they acted, the better their chances.

"Now?"

"It's best if you leave as soon as possible. I can get you out of here by tonight," he said quietly.

"That soon?" she whispered.

He nodded and turned to leave again. Sakura's hand pulled tighter. "Wait!"

"What?" He turned sharply, exasperated. "You want to get out of here don't you?"

"Of course!" she cried hotly. "But you can't just leave like this! Not again..."

She was on her feet swifter than he had guessed she could move, and her fingers were in the hem of his mask before he could think about stopping her. She yanked him towards her by the gauzy fabric as she simultaneously dragged it out of the way, and the next thing he knew was the soft, sweet press of her mouth over his.

Caught off guard, he stood dumbly while her lips moved insistently against his, coaxing him to respond and nipping in frustration when he wouldn't. She drew back to gauge his expression and he felt as pensive as she looked.

"This is not advisable," he muttered.

"Shut up." She pulled him down to kiss again. Luscious, firm lips moved in an insistent rhythm, and someone moaned – probably him. Delicate fingers brushed through his hair and over his ears and suddenly her tongue was slipping into his mouth, stroking and teasing his. Kakashi gave up all pretence of control and tangled his hands through her hair, drawing her as close as he could to explore her mouth.

They kissed deeply, hands locked tightly in clothing and in hair. She nipped his bottom lip and he felt the groan go through him again when she opened her mouth in seductive invitation. And he took it, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and angling his face over hers. Framing her cheeks with his hands, caressing and punishing her mouth with his. He kissed her as if it were the last embrace they would ever share.

Maybe it was.

Common sense made one last attempt to break through the door Kakashi was closing on it. Kakashi ended the kiss and tried to pull his head out of her hands. "Sakura, we can't-"

"Shhh," she whispered, trailing kisses along his jaw. "I need to show you how much you mean to me, and I need you to show me too." Her eyes were over-bright with unshed tears. "I can't walk out of here not knowing if..."

"If?" His treacherous hands were still moving through her hair.

She looked him in the eye, gathering her courage. "I need to know this baby was created in love, and it's not just some terrible mistake... I can't bear the thought that you've only been looking out for me because you're a soft-hearted idiot who'd do the same for anyone, and not because you love me."

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. In fact he didn't quite know what to say to that. He looked to the door, half expecting it to be broken down any second by a contingent of guards who could instinctively tell when something was going on that shouldn't be. Sakura caught his head in her hands again and drew his attention back to her. "No one's coming," she promised. Her nose bumped against his pulse point and then her tongue darted out, licking his bared neck just about the edge of his fallen mask.

"Let's make love," he heard her whisper.

The second he felt teeth graze his skin, he knew he was done for. He dipped his head. His mouth slanted across hers, capturing it, and forcefully thrusting his tongue into it, amazed that she was not only letting him but instigating and meeting him point for point. The last clear recollection he had of kissing her, she'd virtually run off screaming into the night, so this could only be an improvement.

He didn't know what she'd truly intended here. Perhaps she'd only wanted to kiss him and find out where they stood with each other, but the act was quickly spiralling out of both their control. It had been so long since he'd been able to touch her as he pleased – _eight months_ was a hell of a long time to keep your distance from a woman who drove you crazy, in every meaning of the word. He hadn't always been able to refrain, and that lack of control, however brief, had cost him dearly last time. To finally be able to hold her, and taste her mouth, and run his fingers through her hair and over her back... all the pent up feelings he'd worked so hard to suppress were bubbling up uncontrollably. Perhaps it was the same for her, because although she paused and looked surprised when he began tugging at her obi, she didn't shy away.

He forgot about Konoha. He forgot about the war, and the Syndicate, and he might have forgotten about Karasu too if he didn't see his name every time he looked down at Sakura's face. The tag was a provocation on the deepest level, and it struck out at something very primitive inside him. Karasu had put his name on a woman he knew already belonged to Kakashi in some way and if he hadn't known better, Kakashi would have thought it was a blatant incitement; enough so that Kakashi felt the irrational need to reassert his claim, not unlike the way Pakkun got angry when other dogs pissed on his trees and his first reaction was to go drink a lot of water and head out on a 'business trip' to rectify the situation...

Sakura might not have appreciated that comparison, however. She was not a tree to be pissed on by competing males, though the vulgar position he'd put her in was uncannily similar.

And despite the crude urgency running through his veins, he never once turned rough. His hands always touched her lightly, gently, and always mindful of her belly. But it was also an obstacle. As much as he wanted to crush her close and jam his hips to hers and push his knee between her legs... that wasn't going to happen.

"I'm not a flower!" Sakura sighed loudly the third time he ran his hands over her hips like they were made of glass.

"I don't want to hurt you," he protested.

"You won't, I know you won't," she said emphatically, as if she truly, implicitly believed what she was saying.

"I don't really want to hurt him either," he muttered.

"You saw the book, didn't you?" She blushed red. "There's plenty of ways we can..."

Oh boy.

Kakashi reached for her again, but this time she slipped backwards and lowered herself onto the bed, holding his gaze with hers the whole time as she shuffled backwards. The obi fell away completely and the sides of her kimono parted, offering him the sight of her white cotton underclothes and more than an ample glimpse of her thighs, if he'd cared to look away from the eyes that mirrored his. Anxiety, desperation, lust; it was all there. That, and the sadness.

She held her hand out to him and he didn't think. He just took it. There was no panic in her as he straddled her, pinning the kimono to the bed with his knees as he slipped his hands inside the dress, round her warm, slim back until he came to a rest on his elbows. His weight centred comfortably above her and he ghosted his lips over hers. "Is that nice?" he asked her, feeling her breath coming short against his mouth.

"It would be nicer if you weren't five miles away," she complained quietly, and before he could anticipate her plans, she slipped one of her legs over his and pulled him flush against her. She wasn't messing around. Perhaps if this was another time and place there would be room for playfulness and coy seduction, but here they were short on everything: time, humour... patience.

Her mouth caught his again and as her fingers eased under his shirt to stroke up his back, he heard her whispering to him. "I need you... I need this, _please..._" He quietened her with another penetrating kiss and let his hands fumble their way down her body to squeeze her bottom and tug her thigh higher against his hip. The sounds she made always drove him mad. That soft, high sound like a moan and a sigh as her pelvis bucked against his. His breath was coming short too now, his blood rushing so fast around his body and towards nether places he was sure that was why he felt dizzy. He reached beneath her underskirt and grasped the hem of her panties to begin figuring out how to get them off while he occupied the space between her thighs.

Sakura made a taut sound of anticipation. "You have to do it properly this time," she sighed.

Kakashi stilled. "Come again?"

"Making love," she said impatiently. "You have to do it _properly_. You were kinda rubbish last time. You were all grabby and too fast..."

His hand dropped back onto the bed. For a long time he said nothing. "Are you into auto-erotica asphyxiation or something? Because I am _this_ close to strangling you-"

"Oh, we both know it's true," she interrupted hotly.

"You don't have to say it. I've gone right off the boil now."

"You're such a baby..."she sighed. "I was offering constructive criticism."

"You should always be open to sound advice, Kakashi," said a voice from the door.

Sakura gasped and Kakashi snapped upright as if someone had just poured ice down the back of his shirt. He turned to the open doorway behind him, and stared Karasu dead in the eye. Beneath him, Sakura was rather slowly and carefully closing her kimono again like she was avoiding any sudden movements.

"I hope I'm interrupting," Karasu spoke again, wearing a faint smile beneath his loose mask. "Only there's something that requires your attention."

Kakashi ground his teeth. "I'm busy."

"No, you're not," said Karasu, running his eyes speculatively over Sakura. "What I have is far more interesting. Cool yourself off, I'll wait for you out here."

He stepped backwards and slid the door shut again.

Neither of them moved. Sakura was still splayed beneath him, although now she'd turned rather pale and the dark tattoo stood out even more strongly. He leant down and pressed a short kiss to her mouth. "I'll be back soon," he said darkly, "With whatever body parts of Karasu's I need to remove that thing."

"Be careful," she whispered as he pushed off the bed and began correcting his clothes.

He decided not to look back at her lying there, undressed and mussed with an open mouth. He could easily forget Karasu was waiting for him and go back to finish what they'd started. Instead he stopped by the door and took a few deep breaths to calm and compose himself, then he stepped out into the corridor.

Karasu was leaning against the wall by his own bedroom door. "I hope she's not too disappointed," he pondered aloud, then pushed away from the wall to begin walking.

With a snap, Kakashi shut the door and fell into step behind his cousin. "This had better be good," he remarked shortly, lifting off his hitai-ate under the pretence of running his hand through his hair. He was not at all concerned with his grooming right then, but he would need to have his sharingan ready for what came next. Karasu wasn't particularly strong against compulsion genjutsu, and Kakashi had a feeling that was what it would take to force him into removing the tag on Sakura.

On his part, Karasu ignored the remark. "You know, it amazes me," he said, choosing a non sequitur.

Kakashi took the bait grimly. "What does?"

"Your cock."

Kakashi rolled his eyes.

"We really should start considering the possibility it has superpowers. It led you right to her, with only one thing in mind. Did you not get the hint that I wanted your mitts off her for a while?"

"I'm just trying to get on your bad side," he answered with a shrug.

"Oh, you're already there," Karasu said lightly. "Trust me."

Kakashi looked along the corridor with consternation. "Where are we going?" Ideally he wanted Karasu in a nice quiet room where he could perform the jutsu uninterrupted, but with every step Karasu was leading him onto busier straits. They passed servants who did their usual routine and stopping and bowing to them, and he got the distinct feeling they weren't heading anywhere private.

"I don't want to spoil the surprise now," Karasu retorted.

"Enough surprises." Kakashi stopped dead. "We need to talk."

"Yes, yes, you're upset about the face," he sighed, half-turning towards him. "Why do you think I wanted you away from her? I knew you'd freak unnecessarily."

"Karasu!"

"I have some choice words I'd like to say to you too, Kakashi, about choosing a nobody girl over your own kin!" Karasu snapped, beginning to lose patience. "But that will have to wait. _This_ cannot." He turned into the open doorway of one of the entertainment rooms and disappeared.

Kakashi hesitated and then followed him inside.

The room was full of clan members, looking sombre and stiff with their backs to the door. They all appeared to be looking at something along the opposite wall, and as he and Karasu entered they split and moved aside to allow room.

Midori was the last to move. She turned and fixed Kakashi with a blank look before sloping out of the way, allowing Kakashi to finally see what held their attention.

Two female figures in black and white uniform lay side by side against the wall, and the dark, crusted blood around wounds to their stomach left him under no illusion they were still alive. The third figure, male, was bound and kneeling on the floor before them. He was conscious, but not in much better condition than the other two. His dark head was bowed low enough that Kakashi could see down the back of his neck.

Oddly enough it was the mask he recognised. The porcelain cat face was shattered into five pieces near his knee, but Kakashi knew its painted patterns better than he knew his own.

Karasu strode over to the man and walked around him. "Yamato, isn't it?" he greeted pleasantly, gripping the man by his hair to raise his head, ignoring the grimace of pain. "Say hello to my dear cousin, Hatake Kakashi."

Tenzou's fiery eyes met Kakashi's. His lips moved but the words were barely audible. _"You... filthy... traitor..."_

Karasu just laughed. "Or maybe you two already know each other?"

* * *

Next Chapter: _Poison_


	38. Poison

A/N: Nya ha ha! Nobody expects the fast update! XD Check my profile to see some more great fanart for HoC from the wonderfully talented _cake-bot_ and _natureandKakashi._

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**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Poison

* * *

_A dying scream makes no sound,_

_Calling out to all that I've ever known,_

_Here am I, lost and found,_

_Calling out to all.  
_

* * *

Sakura stalked the length and breadth of her room like a caged panther; a heavily pregnant caged panther, which most zoologists would agree was the most restless and dangerous kind. Worse yet, she was still trying to shake off the arousal that thrummed in her veins – it just wasn't appropriate right now! Now when she felt like she was being held aloft in the air by a single rope, waiting to see which direction the wind blew her in.

Perhaps kissing Kakashi had been a mistake. She hadn't really intended anything more than a dramatic farewell kiss the same as she'd seen in a thousand romantic movies, but then he'd gone and kissed her back, and she'd discovered she still had perfectly irrational hormones that had decided she'd been neglected for too long. And they'd come so close. If Karasu hadn't walked in the door, perhaps she would still be lying in his arms, discovering what the intimacy they should have had long ago was supposed to feel like.

But now she had to sit and wait. If all went well, Kakashi would be back soon with Karasu. How he thought he was going to force that man to remove the tag and then expect to remain with his clan after coercing their leader like that, she had no idea. Frankly she had bigger problems of her own to worry about, such as how the hell she was going to secure a fast and safe journey back to Konoha. It was all very well removing the tag, but that was only half the problem of escaping.

Her nerves were wound so sight that when something banged against the window shutters Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin. Annoyed at herself for overreacting, she marched over to the shutters that Kakashi had previously closed and wrenched them open a few inches to peer out.

There was the roof of the bathhouse across from her, and with all the doors folded back she could see right into the upstairs corridor. Below was part of the garden, and beyond she could see a little slice of the lake, now red in the light of the setting sun. No one was around, so she began to suspect it was nothing more than a pesky bird who had flown into her window without looking where it was going. Probably one of Karasu's crows.

That was until she spotted the stone resting against one of the flowerpots on her miniature balcony. The stone itself wasn't particularly unusual, but the fact that there was a piece of paper wrapped around it with a ribbon...

Sakura snatched it up and stared more closely at the building opposite. Had someone just thrown this?

Whoever had thrown it had disappeared by now, so Sakura retreated cautiously into her room and began to unravel the ribbon and unfold the attached note. The first thing she noticed was that she was holding a prescription note for beta blockers, and she briefly wondered why on earth someone would ever want to throw that through her window. Did she look like she needed beta blockers?

Then she turned the note over and found a message on the back written in tiny, crooked hand.

_Sakura. Go to the cottage by the lake. Meet me there._

She didn't recognised the handwriting. It wasn't neat and precise like Kakashi, who wrote like he'd been trained as a calligrapher before a ninja. And it wasn't Karasu's writing, because she only had to look at her reflection in the mirror to see the tiny, uneven words were totally unlike his large, sprawling ones.

Was this one of the servants? Was this the _doctor?_ This was from his prescription pad after all, and what if he wasn't as dead as she'd assumed?

Sakura looked towards the window again, making sure the kunoichi who'd been guarding her were still absent, before making her way to the door and peeking out into the hall. Perhaps Karasu was too busy or hassled to remember to send another set of guards up to watch her room, because the corridor was still empty. More than likely, he was just too confident that she wouldn't attempt to leave the room, with or without watchdogs.

Well, then he could only blame himself, she thought, as she stepped outside and began to make her hurried way to the servants stairs.

* * *

He'd never realised it before, but Tenzou did in fact possess a limited temper. In all the time he'd known his kohai, he'd rarely heard him raise his voice, and never in anger before. In fact he'd included it as a criticism in his early team assessments in ANBU: _'Recruit #8 lacks conviction against opponents and demonstrates a marked unwillingness to remonstrate poor performers._'

Too nice and too boring for ANBU, in other words. He was well aware this was also something a lot of people had said about himself too, but then he'd left ANBU a long time ago. It was possible in his absence that the organisation had toughened Tenzou up more than he'd realised. But it was also possible that finding out the superior you'd looked up to for most of your professional life was casually kicking up his heels in an enemy hideout while a war raged, was one of the few things that could truly get such a nice young man angry.

Kakashi held his ground, his discomfort with the situation locked down and hidden behind a passive face that was sorely missing its mask. He couldn't tell what was worse; the brutal anger radiating from Tenzou more towards him than the people who had sawn off his left arm, or the visible hurt parallel to it. It wasn't pain that was making his kohai shake and grit his teeth. It was utter betrayal.

"You were my friend, Kakashi," he ground out in a low, uneven croak.

"Don't be so redundant," Karasu admonished him. "Just tell him he's an asshole and you never liked him anyway."

Tenzou's smouldering glare turned to Karasu. "Is this it then?" he demanded. "The fabled leader of the Syndicate? I've seen more impressive things floating in a toilet."

"Let's keep things pleasant, Yamato-san," Karasu said, moving behind Tenzou to toe to the two corpses lined up against the wall. "We don't want you ending up like these two unfortunate ladies."

He leant down and scooped a frog ANBU mask off one of the dead kunoichi and held it to his own face. Kakashi looked down at the revealed woman and realised he knew her: she had been a brand new ANBU recruit the same year he'd left, but in those few overlapping months they'd had several missions together. She'd thought his name was Hatake Katashi for most of that time. Kakashi had never corrected her, because he took far too much perverse amusement in her embarrassment when Tenzou had finally mentioned his real name to her some ten weeks later.

Kakashi forced his gaze away from her and back onto Tenzou, who had returned to staring at him as if he was everything he loathed and hated in this world.

"You're a fairly high-ranking ANBU member," Karasu continued blithely, circling back around his kneeling prisoner. "Maybe you can answer some questions for me."

"What could I possibly tell you that you don't already know?" Tenzou ground out, still glaring at Kakashi. "You have one of the highest ranked jonin in Konoha as your informant."

"Soon to be Hokage too," Karasu replied.

Tenzou grunted. "Not likely. If the Hokage didn't already suspect him, I wouldn't have been sent here. And when I don't return, then her suspicions will be confirmed and _everyone_ will know what a treacherous son of a whore you really are, Kakashi!"

Kakashi's steady gaze faltered. Fear flooded his system like molten lava, because he knew that even if Konoha had yet to be sure of his deceit, it was all too late to rectify his reputation by now.

"So one of your best jonin goes rogue and she only sent three nin?"Karasu prompted, crouching before Tenzou to peer at him closely through the eyeholes of the frog mask. "Kakashi, you should be insulted."

Tenzou's gaze flicked to Karasu. "We didn't come for _him."_

Shit. No. _Don't say her name. _Kakashi shifted restlessly where he stood, willing Tenzou to look back at him so he could silently make him understand that he _could not mention Sakura._ If Karasu learned she was a Konoha kunoichi, she would be the next body lining the wall.

"Three nin still isn't enough to bring _me_ in," Karasu almost laughed.

"We didn't anticipate this many of you," Tenzou said stiffly.

Kakashi watched the subtle bunching of his shoulders and the muscle tick in his jaw. "He's lying," he said.

Tenzou shot him a furious, disbelieving look the same time Karasu raised an eyebrow at him. "How so?"

"Even on reconnaissance the Hokage wouldn't have sent just three people into a suspected enemy stronghold. My guess is that about five miles away there is a whole ANBU division, maybe two, awaiting his orders. If they don't hear from him soon, they'll invade tonight."

Tenzou was staring at him so hard it was a wonder he didn't do himself an injury.

Karasu turned a smile on Kakashi. "Where?"

"West," he replied after a moment's thought. "The wind's blowing from the east; they know to be downwind from here."

Karasu looked back at Tenzou curiously for confirmation, and the man had gone even paler with poorly suppressed anger. "I trusted you with my life," he muttered angrily at Kakashi. "How could you do this to me? To everyone? How could you do this to _her_, Kakashi? It's just one disgrace after another with you and this family, isn't it? First your father, now you. Why don't you do us all a favour and kill yourself as well-"

A hard kick across the jaw shut him up. "That's enough," Karasu said coldly. "In this house you speak with respect or not at all."

"Karasu," Kakashi called, carefully not looking at Tenzou. "This is serious. If there's a whole division of ANBU preparing to attack this place, we have to leave _now_."

"We have the element of surprise, don't you think?" Karasu rose with a shrug. He'd laid the frog mask down on the floor but something else glinted in his hand now. "We should go out and meet them before the sun sets. Show them that no silly little despot's lapdogs are a match for freedom fighters."

"And if we defeat them, then what? They'll be back in greater numbers within a week. We should cut our losses and leave," he told Karasu. "Are you even listening to me?"

Kakashi didn't think he was. A strange, faraway look had misted over Karasu's face as if he'd just remembered something important or had heard a distant noise only he could hear. Ignoring Kakashi, he turned and pointed to Takashi and Midori. "The girl's on the move," he said to them evenly. "She's heading towards the lake cottage. She's probably not going too far, but detain her if you would, please."

Midori and Takashi bowed and quickly slipped away through the crowd to the exit. Kakashi schooled his expression, but Tenzou was less successful. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his kohai darting a look between him and Karasu, but miraculously he refrained from comment. Did he realise they were talking about Sakura? Did he realise he had to feign ignorance to her very existence in order to protect her?

"Now," Karasu said, turning back to Tenzou, "you're going to tell me how many friends you have hiding in the woods."

"I don't have any friends in the woods." Here Tenzou shot Kakashi a filthy look. "Or otherwise."

Karasu laughed. "I'll bet. But Kakashi seems to think otherwise, so you _are _going to tell us."

"You'll all be dead long before you could hope to get any answers out of me," Tenzou snarled defiantly.

Karasu held his hand out to Kakashi. "Start cutting him."

Kakashi looked down at the proffered piece of Tenzou's porcelain mask that his cousin had picked up off the floor. The shard was as sharp as any kunai, and was partly coloured by one of the stripes that had marked the mask out as that of a cat. It looked like sticky blood in this light.

"You spent two years in the interrogation unit in Konoha, didn't you?" Karasu prompted, slapping the shard into Kakashi's palm when he failed to take it. "I'm looking forward to this."

Kakashi looked from the blade of porcelain in his hand to Tenzou's bowed head and then back to Karasu. "What are you playing at?" he asked in a low voice.

His cousin did nothing but smile slightly.

"You really are a fool!" Kakashi exploded, throwing the shard against the wall so hard that it shattered and several clan members skittered away from the shrapnel. "You learn Konoha forces are a breath away from knocking down the door, and you want to play interrogation?! We should be making preparations to leave!"

"Are you questioning my leadership?" Karasu asked, more amused and more deadly serious than Kakashi had ever seen before. The room seemed to have gone awfully quiet all of a sudden and no one was moving. Even Tenzou had sensed the critical dissonance that had developed between the two men and was holding himself perfectly still.

"You are not fit to be leader of this clan," Kakashi said slowly and clearly, "if you are willing to throw away needless lives tonight. Someone needs to say it, Karasu; you're leading this clan over the edge of a cliff. You're so hell-bent on destroying Konoha you're losing reason."

"Have you just decided you want your throne back, your majesty?" Karasu mocked. "Look at you, suddenly putting on airs in front of everyone. Your subordinate turns up and suddenly you turn gallant – shall we tell him that not three minutes ago you were forcing yourself on our poor hostage? You're more concerned with your dick than your responsibilities. You had the opportunity to become Hokage and grind that filthy village under your heel, but you went lazing about Amegakure instead with a whore. And when the opportunity to strike Konoha arises, you're the first to back down like a coward."

"Because I value the lives of this family," Kakashi responded quietly.

"You can't stomach conflict," Karasu rebuked. "That's all."

Kakashi could see people looking anxiously between them. If he made a grab for power right now – declared himself the rightful heir of the clan and its true leader – how many would support him?

He doubted it would be many.

"I'm begging you, Karasu," he said softly. "There is no sense in staying here. Konoha already knows about us, they'll keep returning until they eradicate us. If we don't move out of here now, we will later, and the lives lost defending our position will have been in vain. _Think_."

Everyone waited for Karasu's next retort, waiting for the decision of what they were to do. Kakashi was not quite expecting him to suddenly give a small smile and a laugh. "It's not your fault, I suppose," he said amicably. "I've been keeping you in the dark, letting you worry unnecessarily. We're safe here, and we don't need to move anywhere. More specifically, we can't."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

He wasn't the only one confused, as several members of the clan were looking around, trying to identify who else had lost the plot. Karasu turned and nodded to two silver-haired men, some of the few who weren't looking perplexed at the turn of the conversation. "Jin, Ginta, come with us. We're going to the lake."

_The lake? _Kakashi watched the crowd part again to allow them room to leave, and he knew he was finally going to be led to the answers he was looking for. But he found himself turning back to Tenzou instead.

"I'm sorry," he said to his kohai, who really had been his favourite despite all the teasing.

Tenzou's battered face glared sullenly back. "That makes it all better, does it?"

But however horrific his injuries were, his severed arm wasn't bleeding.

Karasu gestured to the assembled clan-members on his way out. "Keep an eye on the prisoner. If he so much as breathes wrong-"

"You will do nothing," Kakashi snapped. Not that it mattered anyway. The bound man kneeling on the ground was nothing more than one of Tenzou's extremely hardy wood clones.

They all looked to Karasu who shrugged vaguely. "Humour him. He's had a rough day. Now come _on_, Kakashi."

He followed his cousin and the two other members of the upper house out of the room and down the grand hallways. No one said a word as they moved, and Kakashi took careful note of their route. They headed out into the garden, beneath the arches of wisteria and between the tranquil ponds until they were descending towards the shore of the lake. It one were to head to the doctor's cottage now, they would turn right and travel anti-clockwise. Karasu turned left along the path that led into the deepest trees. Kakashi had already spent the best part of two days searching this lake for clues, and he'd already covered this path. But had he missed something?

Apparently he had, when Karasu came to a stop at a perfectly innocuous tree that slanted over the lake's edge. Beneath its shade, the water was a perfect inky black, and Karasu stepped out on the quivering surface as if he weighed no more than a feather. "Stick close," he said to Kakashi. "There's not much light left and it's rather easy to get lost down there."

"Down where?"

Karasu released the chakra from his feet and slid almost noiselessly into the water, disappearing from sight completely. Kakashi looked to his other two cousins who were beginning to wade into the water with much less panache than his first, and soon they were also diving under the water and kicking down into the murky depths.

Kakashi had rather hoped there was a way to learn the secrets of this clan without getting soaked and muddy. With a pained sigh, he trudged into the lake after them and took a few deep, measured breaths before ducking under. It was so dark and cloudy under the surface that Kakashi had to open the sharingan in order to keep up with whoever's feet were kicking in front of him. They were swimming down, close to the inclining bed, and the further they went the darker it grew until he was sure that Karasu and the others had to be swimming by touch alone. They couldn't possibly see through this.

His lungs were starting to burn. How much further were they supposed to swim? Having already swum lengths up and down this damn lake, he couldn't think what it was Karasu had to show him down here, and if they didn't find whatever it was soon, Kakashi would have to quickly abscond to the surface.

Suddenly the body in front swivelled in the water and appeared to disappear right into the mud like an eel. Kakashi quickly kicked towards the same spot and put his hands out to feel the edges of the narrow tunnel hiding beneath the rocks. He hesitated. He was already short on air, did he really want to go diving headfirst into an underwater tunnel that was too small to turn around in?

He'd never actually realised he was a little claustrophobic until then. But then he'd never done something this stupid.

However, Karasu would never let him live it down if he chickened out now, so without a further thought for common sense, he pulled himself into the tunnel.

Now he really was swimming blind. There was no light in this tunnel, not even for the sharingan to pick up, but he valiantly pulled himself along by digging his fingers into the muddy walls. Things wiggled and slipped beneath his hands- he didn't like to think what. Besides, he was a little preoccupied with the oxygen situations, and the lack thereof.

The tunnel was scaling upwards. This had to be close to the end. Kakashi's chest screamed to inhale and he pulled himself along faster until he was virtually crowding against the legs of the person in front. And just when he thought he'd have to recall an obscure wind-based jutsu in order to give himself a little more time, the legs blocking his way vanished and a blast of coldness hit his face.

It took him to moment to realise he'd broken the surface.

"Getting a little worried there, Kakashi?" Karasu snickered through the darkness. There was a little more light in this chilly, underground pocket, and that seemed to be coming from the faintly glowing fungi covering the walls. It was enough to see that Karasu was wringing out his hair on a solid shelf of rock a few feet away.

"This your secret lair then?" Kakashi shot back, pulling himself out of the water and snapping his hands to spray everyone else with droplets. "Is this why you think we can stay here with ANBU running around up there? You're right. Why leave and enjoy our freedom when we can hide away in cold, damp caves underground?"

"I'm never comfortable around you when you're being sarcastic. You're not very good at it." Karasu pushed the wet hair back from his face and turned towards a narrow opening in the rocks behind him. "What I want to show you is through here, and it's a little more than 'damp caves', kay?"

"Then what is it?"

But Karasu was determined not to say. "You'll see."

He started off down the passage with the other two in tow, leaving Kakashi little choice but to wipe away the faceful of muddy water and follow after them.

* * *

Sakura studied the unkempt rose bushes and overgrown grass that surrounded the doctor's cottage. Well, Karasu hadn't coming leaping out from behind any of them to shout "Aha!" yet, so she was sure that this probably wasn't a trap he'd laid for her. Then again, she didn't really have any idea who had written this note, or why, or even when they'd actually wanted to meet her here. The longer she stayed, the more likely it was Karasu or his cronies would come along to drag her back, but she didn't want to ignore this in case she had an unexpected ally in this place.

Just in case whoever it was had wanted to meet her inside the cottage, Sakura quietly knocked on the door and let herself in when nobody answered. The house was empty, all except for Yui who was still in the back room, either asleep or deeply unconscious. Sakura paused in the doorway. There was nothing she could do for the other maid, so she forced herself to quietly shut the door again and go outside. It hurt to turn her back on a patient, even when that person was one of the more obnoxious examples of a human being.

When she stepped back outside again, however, she noticed two figures coming up the path towards the cottage. One was a young, dark-haired man, and the other a white-haired woman who looked far too similar to Reika to be anything other than her sister. Then again, everyone looked the same in this clan. Sakura watched their approach with trepidation. Were these the ones who had sent her that note? What the hell did they want?"

"Visiting your friend?" asked the woman, neither pleasantly nor unpleasantly. She gave Sakura a hard look as if she was a tedious chore that couldn't be avoided.

"You have to come back to the house," the man told her. "Karasu's orders."

"I don't answer to Karasu," Sakura responded tightly, her stomach sinking. These people had nothing to do with the note. Karasu had just sent them to retrieve her like an errant child.

"You do while your under his roof."

"This isn't his roof!" said Sakura, outraged. "This estate and every roof on it belongs to the Zuru family."

The Hatake man and woman grinned at each other, as if Sakura really was a child – an ignorant one besides being errant too. She really didn't like that smile. Everyone knew that the Hatake clan were as good as the masters of this household, but no one _said_ it. Not unless it might shortly be coming true...

"Let us take you back to your room," the man said again, addressing her as if she was really a guest instead of a prisoner. "I'm sure you're getting hungry."

"No, I'm fine," Sakura said curtly. "I'll stay right here."

The woman rolled her eyes. If they were sisters, Reika had truly hogged all the drama genes. "Takashi, just grab her and let's go. I don't want to miss it when Kakashi finally slugs him."

The man, Takashi didn't move.

"Do it!" the woman said, pulling authority into the command. Judging by the colour of her hair, she outranked him in this clan.

"What if I hurt her?" he asked worriedly. "Karasu will kill me..."

Great. Now they were talking about her as if she was a delicate little songbird with a broken wing.

"She probably has ten pounds on you! Don't be such a coward!" she admonished.

With a set expression, the man advanced on Sakura, prepared to take no guff. But the moment his fingers latched around Sakura's wrist she reacted with a cry and tried to curl around herself. Shocked, the man released her and stepped back, hands up. "What? I didn't do anything!"

"Ah, it hurts!" waxed Sakura. There probably wasn't much point is feigning pain, as it would only buy her a few minutes at the most. Nevertheless, these people were doing their utmost to make her life difficult. The least she could do in return was be as annoying as humanly possible.

But the woman was out of patience. "Can't you tell when a woman's faking, you idiot?" she snapped at her companion and began to move forward.

The moment she put her foot down, the ground exploded beneath her and dozens of rigid, wooden vines snapped around her legs and arms, trapping her.

"Midori!" the man shouted and started back to her. The ground gave beneath him too, but this time he had warning and leapt backwards to avoiding the groping vines that shot towards him. He didn't notice the tree behind him whose branches were quickly lengthening and twisted like many arms of long, spindly fingers. He heard the thrash of leaves and began to turn, but by then it was too late. The tree plucked into the air and in seconds had him as bundled and restrained as Midori.

Sakura stood very still, wondering if the same thing was going to happen to her. But the attacker was only interested in the two Hatake members, and she watched with wide eyes as the wooden, organic bind began to contract and squeeze until the man and woman were thrashing desperately as they turned blue.

And then they weren't fighting at all.

"You're killing them, stop it!" Sakura shouted, alarmed.

The creeping of tightening vines ceased and gradually the ones holding the woman retracted into the ground, and the branches clutching the man loosened enough to drop him to the ground. Both splayed unconscious in the moss.

Only then did the attacker appear. He pulled himself out of the ground like a terrific swamp monster, all mud and grass, but as he climbed to his feet he was getting cleaner – or rather the mud and grass was turning into flesh and clothes.

"Yamato-taichou!" Sakura all but screamed in surprise and joy as she rushed towards him. She'd never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. He turned at the sound of her voice and she saw relief of his face too, but that quickly faded into shock shortly before she crashed into him and wrapped her arms so tightly around him he couldn't lift his own.

"Sakura," he gasped. "You know, it's just 'Tenzou' really."

He'd told her enough times, but she could never remember. "Sorry," she pulled back in a rush to address him. "You surprised me – what are you _doing_ here?!"

"I'm here for you," he said, eyes wandering worriedly over her face and down to her belly. "The Hokage's been frantic, she hasn't heard from you for months now. We didn't know whether you were alive or dead and... god, what has he done to you? Your face-"

"Tsunade sent you?" Sakura interrupted. "Then she must suspect Kakashi...?"

He nodded. "We had no choice. He was giving us information – and it wasn't just wrong, it was lethal. We trusted him that the Iwa invasion forces would come through the grass country and they came through waterfall instead. The few troops we had stationed there would have been slaughtered completely if Naruto hadn't gotten there in time. He said the Syndicate would be coming for _me_, and Tsunade pulled protection away from the council to cover me, and one of the elders was killed the next day. Shikamaru intercepted a crow messenger that stated this had been the intention all along, and I was merely the diversion."

Sakura gaped at him. "Kakashi... Kakashi couldn't have known."

"Sakura, he's part of the Syndicate!" Tenzou hissed. "Don't let your feelings for him blind you-"

"I'm not blind!" she protested. "I've been trying to contact Konoha for months, stuck in this place with morning sickness and cramps and backaches and depression! I'm not under any illusion about what kind of person Kakashi is! He _couldn't_ have known! He told me himself that he was giving Konoha tip-offs against the Syndicate to protect. If they weren't accurate then... then... Karasu must have been playing him!"

She stopped and suddenly paled. "Karasu's been playing him. He knows he's been feeding Konoha information. Kakashi's in danger..."

"Sakura," Tenzou said wincingly. "Don't you think it's much more likely that Kakashi lied to you too?"

"He wouldn't dare," she said quite seriously.

"I just think you're giving him too much benefit of the doubt because you're..." He coughed and looked at her belly. "You're carrying his child, aren't you?"

How the hell did he know that? "Who else knows?" she whispered. In her mind she imagined most of Konoha frowning and tutting at her.

"Just me," he promised. "Kakashi told me long ago. I thought my estimation of him had fallen as far as it could go... boy, was I wrong."

"Don't think too badly of him," pleaded Sakura. "He's just trying to do the right thing."

But from the pitying look he gave her, she could see he thought her to have some kind of battered woman syndrome. "Kakashi is not the man you think he is," he said quietly. "I understand, Sakura. You've had to kid yourself about him because of the baby-"

"No!" she said shortly. "I've had to judge him harder than anyone _because_ of this baby. People don't get free passes for impregnating me! Quite the opposite!"

Now Tenzou just looked embarrassed. She doubted he believed her, but he wisely chose to change the subject. "How have you been holding up?" he asked her sadly.

"Oh, brilliant." She blew out an angry sigh. "I'm being imprisoned by the Syndicate because they want this baby in order to stake a claim on this estate – no, don't ask, I barely get it either – and if they find out I'm a spy for Konoha I'm dead, but if I could just use my chakra I'd have been out of here long ago. But no. I had to depend on Mr Indecisive who only decided to grow some balls when he realised he didn't want his son being born here."

"Son?" Tenzou blinked at her.

Sakura smouldered. "It's a boy."

"Oh. Congratulations," he said, as tragically as if she'd just told him her grandmother had died. "But it's over now. There are two divisions of ANBU stationed just west of here in the forest. We would have been here sooner, but Tsunade thought it best we bring along equipment for a large scale teleportation jutsu in order to get you home without too much exertion on your body. I'll take you to them now. I'll come back with more men to deal with Kakashi and the others. I didn't think we'd be outnumbered here."

"I can't go with you," Sakura said suddenly, touching her face. "This tag... it's so that Karasu knows where I am at all times. If I leave... he'll have people after me in minutes."

Tenzou stopped to think, looking grim. "I can head back to the base and bring a larger group. We'll escort you to where the jutsu has been set up. It's about fifteen minutes away for you, so even if we're followed we can at least hope a big enough group will delay them long enough to get you out of this country."

Sakura took in a shaky breath. The way home was within reach. Her fingers trembled at the thought of being so close to her salvation... while at the same time she was quivering a little with anxiety. She didn't really want her friends to see her like this, fat and slow and needing to be rescued out of her own stupidity in coming to this place alone, hoping to have a child in secret.

"Is that ok?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Wait here by the cottage then so we know where to find you."

"Thank you, Ya – I mean, Tenzou," she said gratefully. "Kakashi was doing his best to get me out of here, but I think he'll be glad you're here to help."

"He didn't look particularly glad when I saw him," Tenzou retorted coolly.

"You've seen him then?" she asked, and gave a nod. "Well, _I'm _glad I got your note, anyhow."

Tenzou tilted his head. "Note? What note?"

Sakura reached into her sleeve to pull out the prescription note. "The one you put through my window?" she reminded. "The reason why I came out here to meet you?"

Tenzou read the note, but he was frowning. "I didn't send you this, Sakura. I came here because they captured one of my clones and I heard the leader telling these two to 'detain you'. I followed them. They just killed my teammates, I didn't want to think what they would do to you."

"Oh," was all she could think to say.

"Do you know who might have sent you this?" he asked, handing it back to her.

She shook her head.

"Well... sit tight and be careful," he cautioned. "I'll be back with others in about twenty minutes."

"Right."

He turned, about to leave, and then remembered the two unconscious Hatake member lying a few metres away. That cold look returned to his face and he formed the seals of another jutsu, and this time the same vines slid out of the ground to enclose the couple in two coffin-like boxes. Then slowly, the boxes began to shunt into the ground, as if pulled by something underneath, until there was no sign there had ever been any body lying there at all. Sakura looked sceptically at Tenzou. "It'll keep them quiet for a while, but they won't die," he said, sounding as if he rather wished they would. But Naruto's anti-vengeance philosophy must have been rubbing off on him because he forced a shrug and slipped away into the ground himself.

She lifted her hand half-heartedly at his departure and looked around. Whoever had sent the note hadn't come; she was pretty sure she was the only one out here right now. With nothing else to do but wait, Sakura went to sit on a tree stump by the edge of the lake. Here was where the water had eroded the bank, turning it into a cliff with a rocky base, so she decided not to get too close knowing her balance these days.

She should have been glad that within an hour she might well be back in Konoha, safe and sound at last. So why wasn't her heart leaping for joy?

It was probably Kakashi. She had begun to hope that Konoha would never find out about his connection to the Syndicate, so that he might be able to come home with her and return to a semi-normal life, but with Tenzou's arrival that hope had been washed clean away and replaced with deeply unpleasant anxiety. It would be alright for her. She would be escorted back to Konoha like a princess. Tsunade must have been really worried about her to send out two ANBU divisions and organise a very tricky and complex teleportation jutsu. Those things were only broken out on formal occasions to transport important people like the daimyou, or else to mass evacuate civilians who couldn't travel, otherwise being too cumbersome and time-consuming for normal use on missions. It warmed her heart to think of the lengths her shishou would go for her, even after Sakura had lied and hidden the truth of her pregnancy.

But for Kakashi? She'd seen the hard look that had entered Tenzou's eyes when his name had come up, and this was the man whom she would have said – more than anyone else in the world – was Kakashi's best friend. Tenzou thought him a traitor and wouldn't listen to her excuses for him... and when the ANBU came for Kakashi, what would that mean? Did they want to capture him, or kill him on sight?

She wanted to warn him. It wasn't _her_ who had to get the hell out of this place; it was Kakashi. He'd played for both sides in this conflict and now he'd lost both. Konoha knew he was a traitor, and Karasu must have been feeding him faulty information all along, knowing he was reporting it back to his village. But Tenzou would be back in twenty minutes and where did she begin looking for him? As far as she knew he was with Karasu, planning to coerce him into removing Sakura's chakra tag.

Perhaps there was still time to go to him and warn him... _and_ have Karasu forced to remove this tag before she was whisked away and lost her chance forever.

She stood. She _had_ to try.

The door to the cottage banged shut behind her, and Sakura turned sharply to see Yui walking stiffly towards her. Her mouth dropped open... because in the daylight the effects of the poison looked much more severe. The girl was a walking skeleton, skin yellow and hair dulled from a vibrant pink to an ugly, dark puce. The sores around her mouth were all the more obvious, and she looked as if she knew she was already dead.

"Yui..." she whispered.

"You came," the other girl croaked.

Sakura looked at the note, startled. "You sent me this?" she asked. This writing – she _had_ seen it before, scrunched up on the rota board in the undercroft, usually in her column overwriting duties such as 'perfuming linens' to 'scrubbing toilets'. "Why did you want to see me?"

"Toshio's dead," Yui rasped.

Going cold, Sakura inched away from her advancing figure. Yui's sickness had infected more than just her body. "That had nothing to do with me, Yui. You have to believe me."

She shook her head. "He died because of you. You got in his head. Messed him up. I told him, he didn't need you. He didn't care. Then you set your man on him."

Yui stopped right in front of her. This close, Sakura could smell the stench of foul infection. It wasn't so different from a corpse. "He never beat me before," the other girl grated on. "But after that, he hit me and slapped me, and called me by your name. Every night. He raped me. Every night."

Sakura was shocked to silence. A prickle of horrified tears stung her throat as she stared at Yui. "I never knew..." she whispered, because she'd never even _thought_. "I'm so sorry..."

Now she realised why Yui had withdrawn so plainly in the last few weeks at the estate. She'd been so damn grateful that Yui was no longer even talking to her, and so glad that Toshio no long laid a hand on Kaoru than she'd never given a moment's thought that Toshio was taking it out on someone else. Someone who would rather die than speak of it to Sakura.

"I had a baby too," Yui reached out, gripping the front of Sakura's kimono like she was too weak to stand without aid, so Sakura held her under her arms. "Toshio's. He told me to get rid of it before his parents found out, so I did. I always did as he asked. I didn't _deserve_ to be thrown aside like that! Do you know how it felt? For me? To see you getting fat with his child and being spared the same fate as me because you had the heir of the Hatake clan panting after you!"

"T-That's not true," Sakura stammered. "They were planning to kill me, that's why I had to leave."

"No one's ever loved me," croaked Yui brokenly, her head falling. "Why? Why won't anyone love me? I gave Toshio everything I could possibly give and he spat it back in my face. You whore yourself to the highest bidder and now look at you... wearing these fine clothes as if you're Lady Zuru herself."

"It's not fair, I know," Sakura said. "But... I'll be leaving her tonight, very soon. If you come with me, I can take you to a proper hospital. It'll make you better, I promise."

Yui stared at her. "Why?"

"I know we never saw eye to eye, but no one deserves this," Sakura said. "If you don't get proper help soon, I'm scared you'll... die."

"But I want to die." Yui said, wide eyed and terrifyingly earnest. "I never wanted to live if I couldn't live with _him__."_

Oh dear. "You're saying that now because you're sick, Yui. You've been ill so long your mind has turned sick too. If you wait here, my friends will be back soon to help us get out of here, and then they'll get you the help you need."

"No, no, no!" Yui cried, pushing away from her. "You're a killer! You killed Himiko and Toshio and you want me dead too!"

"_No!_" Sakura gasped. "I never poisoned anyone!"

"You did! You gave Himiko your drink! She drank it and had to go away! If you'd just drunk it like you were supposed to, she would still be here!" Yui said, giving a great rattling sob.

"What...?" Sakura breathed, watching Yui was an almost painful throb in her chest. "Yui, you didn't... please tell me you didn't."

"What was I supposed to do? You were pregnant, and I could see it plain as the nose on your ugly face, because I'd been there too. I knew it had to be Toshio's. It wasn't a lethal dose, just enough to make you lose the baby. That's what Toshio would have wanted."

"You tried to make me miscarry?" Sakura shouted in alarm. _"How could you?!"_

"You would have been better off if you had..."

Sakura's mind raced. She knew Yui was sick, but this was a confession, not imaginary ramblings. "Then -Toshio – did you kill him too?"

Yui's face pinched with regret. "You did that," she wheezed. "You drove him to madness, and I couldn't bear it. I just wanted to help him sleep better."

"Bullshit!" Sakura yelled. "He was raping you so you killed him! Don't blame it on me! Then you tried to do yourself in too, didn't you?!"

"You have no idea!" Yui screamed back. "You waltz around, not caring about the lives you've ruined!"

"_I've_ ruined?!"

"You never should have come here! It would be better if you just _died!"_

Yui punctuated her screech with a shove that was deceptively strong for her weak frame. Sakura wheeled backwards. Too late, she realised she'd backed closed to the cliff edge since Yui had accosted her, and now she'd stepped back onto thin air. She tried to summon chakra to her feet, but all that happened was the soles of her sandals slipped uselessly against the muddy slope, and then she was falling, weightlessly.

There was no time to feel fear or panic. Sakura's back slammed into the rocky, uneven bank. Something cracked loudly in her ear, and she waited for the pain that would tell her what she had broken. Instinct told her to stay still, and she felt remarkably calm as she looked up at Yui's gaunt face staring down at her from over the edge of the cliff. It was irritatingly close. Sakura was dismayed to see she hadn't really fallen very far.

"Yui, get help," she said quietly. "My ribs are broken."

Yui's response was to pick up a handful of damp earth and throw it down on top of her. Did she think this was a funeral? "You shouldn't have lied," the mad girl called down to her. "I'm going to tell them and make sure _no one_ mistakes this baby for Toshio's. It's what he would have wanted."

Oh, god. She'd heard everything Tenzou had said.

"Yui," Sakura called, her voice higher and more fractured. "Yui, _please. _Don't do this to me."

But Yui was already gone and Sakura was staring up at nothing but a dark sky. She tried to sit up, and found she couldn't. Pain was bleeding through her side now, fresh and strong. Making it difficult to even breathe.

It was ok, she tried to tell herself. Tenzou would be back soon and he'd bring help. Surely they would have brought someone along who was a competent medic? There was still every chance he would find her before Karasu or anyone else Yui told did.

But as she lay there, the panic beginning to mount inside her, something else was happening too. A warm, wet sensation was spilling from between her legs. Sakura wasn't even sure what it was she was feeling until everything in her abdomen was pulling so tight she couldn't help the yelp of pain as everything from her ligaments to her broken ribs were pushed and pulled. The new uncomfortable pain faded as soon as it had begun, and Sakura was left panting and shivering in the aftermath. She waited, afraid. Several minutes later, it came again.

"Not now," she whispered, clutching her belly. "You're too early."

Her broken ribs squeezed, and she screamed again.

* * *

The passage through the rocks seemed endless. All Kakashi knew was that with every step they were heading deeper into the earth and moving north, which meant they had to be right under the middle of the lake by now. Water dripped down from the rocks above to form an icy pool on the ones below. Every now and then Karasu would stop at a branch in the rock passage and select a new direction.

Kakashi wasn't totally confident he knew where he was going.

"We're nearly there," he heard his cousin say, and he looked ahead to see what was so different about _this_ barren length of tunnel from the last.

Then he realised there was someone up ahead, waiting for them. Kakashi squinted but it wasn't until they got up close that he saw the man properly.

Needless to say, of all the things he'd expected Karasu to show him down here, it wasn't the grumpy-faced gardener. He was sitting on a formation of rock that was as close to a chair as one could get, and he stared unblinkingly at the four approaching men.

It was the end of the tunnel.

"The gardener," Kakashi said dimly. "You've imprisoned the gardener underneath the lake."

"Gamekeeper," corrected the gardener gruffly.

Karasu gave Kakashi an amused look. "As his name suggests, he's keeping something for me. And is not at all imprisoned."

The dour man scoffed. "I'm still waiting to get paid."

"Oh, hush," Karasu said dismissively. "Open the door."

"I wouldn't advise it," the gamekeeper intoned. "He's awfully ratty today, I doubt you'd all come out alive."

Karasu shrugged again. "That's fine."

With a sigh, the short man rounded on his feet and ambled to the blank wall that Kakashi had thought was a dead end. It also wasn't completely blank, for there was a rectangle of paper stuck in the middle of the rock face that bore the illegible scrawls of a very old, very powerful seal. All such seals usually originated from one village or another, and each had its distinctive style; this one was very much of Iwa origin.

"This is the jutsu that Iwa gave you?" Kakashi asked. "A seal?"

Karasu nodded. "Yes," he said softly, "among other things."

The gamekeeper peeled off the seal and stepped aside, allowing them to see the small hole in the wall that the paper had concealed. As they watched it dilated in a flash like an enormous eye, and bright, orange light instantly flooded the tunnel. The light was hot. Kakashi felt his cold cheeks tingle at the shock change of temperature and his sharingan snapped open to penetrate the glare that had made every other man around him wince back and shield their eyes.

Through the gaping doorway before them was a cavern so large it could have comfortably accommodated a small mountain. Instead it was taken up almost entirely by the biggest bird Kakashi had ever seen – one that appeared to be on fire. This might have been normal, for it seemed perfectly composed for a creature that was chained to the ground by a network of black, charred chains as thick as trees. Kakashi realised the reason was because the bird had more limbs than usual. Besides the usual pair of wings strapped to its sides, another pair was pinned to the ground by chains, and two more enormous tail plumes that looked more like fiery whips were bound by chains suspended from the great roof of the cavern.

The dusty illustrations of this creature had never done it justice, Kakashi thought, as the beast finally appeared to notice his visitors and jerked giant, yellow eyes towards them. The chains quivered and clanked as its body tensed but couldn't move. Its beak opened and it let out such a terrific shriek that Kakashi could still hear it ringing in his ears long after the beak had shut again.

"What do you think?" Karasu called to him with a grin. Kakashi turned to watch him and knew then that his cousin was truly mad. "Once we unleash this thing on Konoha, they won't know what hit them. The six-tailed bijuu can raze a village to the ground in seconds. They'll be on their knees in surrender after the first attack... if any of them survive it."

* * *

Next Chapter: _Konoha and Kunoichi_


	39. Konoha and Kunoichi

A/N: If you've seen the second artbook you've probably noticed the form of the six-tails has become a minor departing from canon. I had the story planned out nicely a long time ago, and then Kishi went and revealed the six-tails was the most adorkable slug you've even seen. DX Never mind. I love slug-chan, but as far as this story is concerned, he can take a slimy hike.

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Konoha and Kunoichi

* * *

_So much hate for the ones we love._

_Tell me, we both matter, don't we?_

* * *

Kakashi had only seen a handful of bijuu in his life, and rarely was it up close. He'd seen three in total, but experiencing one didn't necessarily give you an idea of what to expect of another. Each bijuu was startlingly different. Some were very much just large flesh and blood animals, others looked like no animal you'd ever seen on this planet, and then there were those that weren't even corporeal. Some were the size of mountains, some only the size of a small house. For others, how big they were depended on how big they wanted to be.

After the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha twenty years ago, he'd spent a lot of time in hospital with little else to do but read up on the kind of monsters that had devastated his village. He certainly hadn't had anyone to talk to; the few friends he'd had were killed in the attack and his only visitor was an overworked nurse who could come into his room to bathe him, feed him, change the drainage bag for his catheter, and do so without ever once looking at him. By the time he could walk again, he considered himself pretty well versed on the subject of tailed beasts, in an obsessively traumatised way. Experts liked to agree they were natural disasters. Some like the nine-tailed fox were attracted to human malice and discontent, others like the two-tailed cat were attracted to death. Then there was the seven-tailed mantis which was attracted to pollen, but that was a whole other matter. The bizarre nature of beasts was that, although they could be killed, they never stayed dead, and when there was a sufficient abundance in malice, death, or hay-fever, they returned.

He'd also learned that in the early era of the villages, most of the tailed beasts had belonged pretty much exclusively to Konoha. The first Hokage's idea to maintain peace had been to distribute the bijuu equally among the five nations, and most of the villages had then implanted them into people. But while sticking bijuu in people was a great way to harness the beast's power, they often didn't account for the tenuous place of a jinchuuriki in society. People with tailed beasts inside them were too often weak against the monstrous power and supernatural intelligence inside them and were driven insane, always destructively so, leading many to be ostracised and mistrusted on principle. It was only inevitable that some of them fled their villages, or were cast out of fear of their power, or even killed.

Thus the balance of powers tipped again and the second great war had been fought over possession of the last remaining jinchuuriki as much as it had been about territory. It wasn't until the war with Akatsuki that new pacts between the villages had been drawn up. The use of bijuu as weapons was banned. Capturing bijuu was banned. Implanting them into people was banned. Anyone who broke the treaty would have the wrath of four other countries raining down upon them. Naruto's presence helped. Although he was forbidden by the treaty to use his bijuu in any way against other villages, that only stood as long as no other village broke the laws laid down. A village could get their hands on a very powerful bijuu indeed, but none stood a chance against the Kyuubi.

"Iwa captured this one about three years ago," Karasu said, strolling around the six-tailed beast's head that was about the size of Kakashi's entire apartment building. He remained just out of reach of the snapping beak. With its neck wrapped in enormous chains, the creature had very little room to move. "They were dying to use it, but thanks to that idiotic law they couldn't so they needed a proxy to use it for them. If Konoha got wind that they had one of these things, they'd stick the Kyuubi on them faster than you can say 'hypocrites'."

He moved to stand in a circle of blood seals written on the rock floor of the cavern. The jutsu activated, and whatever it was had a mild calming effect on the bijuu. It's flaming body cooled to smouldering black feathers and it stopped snapping it's great yellow beak. Like this, Kakashi could see it was an amalgamation of all sorts of birds – hawk, heron... crow. In myths it was known as a tengu.

"So tell me what's fair about that, Kakashi," Karasu said, his voice ringing clearer in the cavern that was no longer filled with the roar and crackle of flames. "Your village gets to keep the strongest bijuu of all and threaten every other village into submission, but if Iwa does the same, they risk open war against all the other nations? Why should anyone stand for that?"

"We needed peace," Kakashi said. "And the villages trust Naruto to control the Kyuubi."

"There's never going to be peace in this world, Kakashi, and you know it. You can de-fang every village you like, but the struggle to be bigger and better than your neighbour always continues, even in peacetime. You can't stop it. Not in this state where the power mad few reign over the majority."

"I see that," he replied grimly, looking at the bijuu. "Iwa had to know they wouldn't get this thing back from you."

Karasu shrugged. "They didn't care. Possessing the Rokubi is great for an aspiring superpower, but what's the point if you can't use it? They gave it to us as payment for our services and under the obligation that we will use it against Konoha. They're not that dumb, the Iwa nin. They know the only way that they can win this war is with the Rokubi, and as long as _they're_ not the ones using it they're safe from the repercussions of violating the pact between the villages. And Konoha can't use the Kyuubi against them in self-defence because if they do, they will be annihilated by the other villages. Beautiful, isn't it? Konoha is doomed either way."

The Rokubi's great, glowing eyes were fixed on Kakashi, and there was a sharp intelligence there. The bijuu were always born of human greed and suffering, and beneath their fantastical appearances they possessed all the worst elements of humanity. Those eyes may have been bigger than he was and glowing yellow to boot, but there was still something deeply and uncomfortably human about them.

"So this is how you plan to attack Konoha," he whispered. "You're learning to control it."

"We're nearly there. Just a few more weeks."

The great bird exploded into flame again and roared. Kakashi stumbled backwards and threw up his hands to protect him from the scalding heat, as did his two cousins behind him. Perhaps the Rokubi didn't appreciate the thought of being controlled, but there was no question that when Karasu raised a hand and shouted an instruction, the bijuu cooled once more and tried to bury its head beneath its wing.

Kakashi slowly lowered his arms, glowering at Karasu. "Don't give me that," he shouted. "You can already control it!"

Karasu looked at him passively.

An awful idea was taking root in Kakashi's mind. It horrified him. Because for all he knew of Karasu, he had never thought he could sink this low. "You could have used this thing on Konoha countless times by now!" he growled. "There's no reason you should be sitting here watching Konoha and Iwa slowly destroy each other while you have this thing under your power. The ANBU are right outside this very minute, and you're still stalling!"

The carefully controlled expression on Karasu's face told him everything he needed to know.

"This is why you've been obsessed with Sakura," said Kakashi. "You don't _need_ another heir to this estate while you have the twins. You kept going on about the need for a male heir, but I know you_._ You probably prefer the idea of the twins inheriting this estate over Toshio! Why not? They're _your _daughters."

The two other members of the upper house present looked at each other in confusion. Karasu stood there silently, not denying a thing.

"I've been racking my brains trying to think why Sakura's baby was so important to you. So important that you'd track her down and brand her face in order to keep her under your thumb. Why so much trouble for a spare heir you don't even need? One that would only usurp your own daughters' right to this estate? Unless what you wanted all along was not an heir. You just wanted a test subject."

Karasu gave a trite sigh. "Oh, she was going to throw it away anyway. Why not donate to science?"

"_Science?!_" Kakashi bellowed. "It's an abomination! You want to seal that monster in that child, and you know _full well_ that the child almost always dies! That's why you wanted Sakura. Because who cares if the child of a maid dies, right? Better than experimenting on your own girls?"

"It needs to be a newborn," Karasu cut him off, "when the soul's connection to the body is weak. And what do you take me for? I know what I'm doing. If the child dies it is only because the act of creating such a powerful seal demands the sacrifice of a human being. The trick is to provide another life, so the child isn't taken by mistake."

"And whose life did you intend to sacrifice?" Kakashi demanded. "Sakura's?"

Karasu shrugged. "It's usually common for the mother's life to be taken in exchange, yes, but I plan to keep my word. She can go free. We can just as easily use dear Tenzou, or any number of the ANBU we capture tonight."

The Rokubi lurched suddenly, swinging its head forward to snap its beak at Karasu. If he'd been standing a few feet closer it would have snapped him in half. As it was, Karasu barely even flinched. He gave the same command as before and the bijuu subsided with a warbling groan. He _did_ know what he was doing. How long had this bijuu been down here? How many rumours of monsters in the great lake could be traced back to this creature.

"You've gone mad," Kakashi stated calmly. "Iwa won't just stand by as you use their bijuu this way."

"Yes, they will. What else are they going to do? Accuse us of stealing the Rokubi from them? They can't even admit to ever possessing it."

"So this war has all been a pretext. You're not interested in 'freeing' the villages. You just want a jinchuuriki of your own?"

"It's a sound investment," Karasu told him. "We could use the Rokubi now and unleash it on Konoha, but there's the risk it'll escape if we do. Not only does creating a jinchuuriki make it stronger, but it binds it to our service for life."

"I've met plenty of jinchuuriki," Kakashi said evenly. "Half of them are psychopaths. If they're not driven mad by the bijuu they're driven mad by those around them. It's not safe to have one in the clan-"

"And you're the one who was always telling me about how awful it was that your own student faced such prejudice and scorn. Hypocrite. You're the biggest bigot here." Karasu laughed.

Kakashi clenched his fists at his side. "I'm well aware of the suffering jinchuuriki get put through that turns so many of them that way. I won't let you force that kind of life on that child."

"You won't?" Karasu raised an eyebrow at him and waved a dismissive hand at the bijuu. "You can object to whatever you like, Kakashi, but you don't get to interfere. You're only here because you've been useful to me, slipping things to Konoha behind my back so they move exactly where I need them to be."

Kakashi opened his mouth, about to protest angrily. But he knew it was no good. Karasu must have known for some time. Why else had Konoha grown concerned enough to send a whole ANBU division out to find him? The bitterness of it wasn't easy to stomach. Karasu had been slowly poisoning his name in Konoha... but he'd brought it on himself. If he hadn't been slipping information to Konoha, his cousin never would have done it.

"You can't pull the wool over my eyes, Kakashi. And I know you have a soft spot for that girl, but my patience runs _real _thin when you start trying to mess up my plans. You go against the clan again and I'll-"

"Your plans will do more harm to this clan than ever I could do!" Kakashi snapped. "People who play around with bijuu don't last long. The villages overlooked the Syndicate for so long because you weren't trouble, but if you start making it now they'll come after you in greater force than we can defend against. Konoha is only the first to catch on. But no infant jinchuuriki is going to save us if you persist in this campaign."

Karasu cocked his head. "Then leave," he said shortly. "You're not wanted here anymore. Go back to your village."

Kakashi's gaze faltered to the ground.

"Oh, that's right," his cousin said with great delight. "They don't want you anymore. All you have left is us, and frankly we don't want you either. Not if you insist on being such a killjoy."

"Being a killjoy is better than being a lunatic."

"Is that so?" Karasu shrugged and began to pace. "Your options are a little limited right now, Kakashi. Your village has turned its back on you, and they'll hunt you down for the rest of your life. You know their laws. You were one of Konoha's most valuable people – you were a breath away from becoming Hokage yourself. Do you really think they'll let you live after this betrayal? In Konoha's eyes, you have no right to a life outside the village. We, on the other hand, are your family, no matter what kind of stupid shit you pull, you will always have a home here. But you have to abide by the house rules. I've let you in on our secrets so you know the score now; you know why I want the girl, and you know that she's in no danger from me – personally, I quite like her. So I don't expect you to take her away from me again, understand."

Kakashi's eyes were closed.

"What's it going to be, Kakashi? So help me, I _will_ disown you if you turn your back on me. And why would you? We're all you have left now. You have no reason not to devote yourself completely to your family now. No more double dealing."

"What about the baby?" he asked.

Karasu looked nonplussed. "What about the baby?"

"What you're planning might kill it..."

"That won't happen," Karasu tried to assure him calmly. "I don't get any joy in killing the defenceless. I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't completely sure it would succeed, so what do you have to complain about? You and I would both give our right hands to hold that much power. This child will be blessed."

Eyes still closed, Kakashi shook his head.

Karasu gave a frustrated groan. "Make a choice, Kakashi," he said. "Make sure it's the right one."

Slowly, Kakashi's left eye slid open to look at Karasu, who suddenly frowned. "Hey, what's up with your-"

Kakashi flicked his gaze to the chain suspended from the ceiling that held the Rokubi's tail plumes. With the sound of distant, distorted pop, the chain jerked and snapped – one of its links had gone missing.

Another pop.

The chains around the front left wing jangled as they came loose. A third pop. The front right wing snapped open like a gigantic fan.

"_Kakashi!" _Karasu snarled, looking as if he very dearly wanted to lunge at him, but right then he was faced with the prospect of a very angry bijuu rearing up on its legs, flames bursting back to life along its body. Four of its six 'tails' were free, and when it flapped its wings, a wave of phenomenal heat rolled over the men.

For once in his life, Karasu looked a little daunted.

Kakashi turned and ran for the door. Over his shoulder he glimpsed the Rokubi slamming one of its tail plumes against a cousin – Jin – sending him flying out of sight as Karasu dodged the second and held his hand up for order.

But even if that creature was under his control, he wouldn't be able to secure it so fast. It gave Kakashi just enough precious time...

He flew up the passage they'd come down, passing the bewildered gamekeeper who was wisely keeping his distance from the madness unfolding in the cavern. The sounds of the screaming Rokubi pursued him, but even those piercing sounds faded as he scrambled up the inclining passages in the rock until he reached the pool where they'd entered. He didn't dawdle this time. He dove right into the water and pulled himself madly through the narrow flooded tunnel, and when he burst out the other end he surged straight towards the surface – that darkly glittering thing that seemed miles above his head.

He burst through into the air with a gasp and treaded water for a moment trying to get his bearings. The sun had fallen behind the hills completely while he'd been down there, and the light had faded rapidly. There was the estate's main house quite some way away, glowing brightly in the evening gloom. Kakashi began to swim towards it. He had to find Sakura and get her out of there before Karasu regained control of the Rokubi.

Some faint sound carrying across the water made him stop and listen. An animal or...? He waited until he heard it again – a distant yell that sounded like bitten off cursing. Definitely human. And it sounded like it was coming from the direction of the doctor's cottage.

Kakashi suddenly have a terrible feeling he knew where it was. Hadn't Karasu mentioned Sakura had been heading that way not too long ago...?

Wasting no time, he pulled himself out of the water and onto the surface with his chakra to begin running towards the cottage. The shouts were growing more distinct as he got closer. He could hear sobbing. He could hear her crying his name.

"_Sakura!" _He mounted the bank and ran along edge of the waterline, pebbles scattering everywhere under his feet. "Sakura! Where are you?!"

"Kakashi?! God, please, help me!" Her shout guided him, and he skittered to a halt at the top of a short cliff directly in front of the cottage. He looked down. There was blood on the stones.

"Sakura?"

"I'm here! Please... please... oh, god..."

She hadn't managed to drag herself far, only to the foot where the cliff's slope was the shallowest, and there he found her curled around herself, breathing in hard, short gasps. He dropped to his knees beside her, hands hovering over her. "What happened?"

"Y-Yui!" she choked out, trying to sit up. "She pushed me! Sh-she's the one who poisoned those people. She tried to kill me that bitch! That-"

She swore again, but it came out as a long-drawn out scream instead that ended in a sob. Her whole body was shaking. Kakashi tried to hush her. "Someone else is going to come if you keep screaming like that," he warned, looking at the patch of blood on her side. "You've only broken a rib-"

"Fuck you!" she shouted, shuddering. "I'm having contractions, you asshole!"

Kakashi's stomach fell out. "Contractions?" he hissed. "It's too early."

"I can't help it!" she cried, screwing her eyes shut against another shiver of pain. "Make it stop!"

"It's ok. It's going to be ok," he said with more soothing confidence than he felt. He slipped his hands beneath her and whispered apologies as he lifted her into his arms. She clenched her teeth and moaned in pain, and that was when he realised the dress beneath her legs was soaked in blood. He swore under his breath.

Sakura heard "He's going to die? Isn't he?" she whimpered. "I killed the baby-"

"He's going to be fine," Kakashi said as he carried her up the slope. "We just need to get you help."

Sakura suddenly seized his vest. "N-No – you have to get out of here!" she said desperately. "Yamato-taichou's coming! He's bringing the ANBU right now! If they catch you here, they're going to kill you! He's really angry!"

"I can't leave you like this." He was forced to lower her to the ground again as another contraction tore through her. He was by no means even mildly versed on the ins and outs of childbirth, but these spasms seemed to be coming awfully fast.

"I'll be fine!" she whispered faintly as the contraction faded. She was trying to push him away from her. "The ANBU... they have a transport jutsu. I'll be in Konoha hospital before you know it. Just – get out of here, please!"

"If you were where I was, you wouldn't leave me either!"

"I _wish_ you were where I was!" Sakura groaned. "If there was any justice in this world, you _would _be the one lying here!"

"You're angry because of the pain-"

"And because you're a prat! I'll be fine once the ANBU get here – but you have to go – go take your ghastly family and get the hell out of here!" she wailed. "_Please!"_

"I can't," Kakashi said brokenly. "Karasu knows I've been trying to help Konoha, and I think I may have just done something that constitutes the final straw in his eyes. He'll be coming soon. I need to get you out of here while he's distracted."

"I-I can't walk."

"You have to." Kakashi ignored her grunt of pain as he lifted her up onto his feet and pulled her arm over his neck. "I'll help you – just one step at a time."

He turned them west and started determinedly towards the trees. Sakura leaned heavily against him, breathing hard. A lot of her panic was transferring to him, but he clamped down on it. There was nothing worse than being in a crisis where the person you needed to rely on looked as if he was losing his head too.

"N-No!" Sakura begged, dragging her feet. "I don't want them to catch you Kakashi! Don't do this! Not for me!"

"I'm not doing this just for you!" he ground out, holding her up when another contraction threatened to bring her down. "I'm doing this for the baby too. The faster you get to that transport..."

Sakura said nothing to this. It was clear that while she would not accept his capture on her behalf... the baby was another matter. She was terrified for its life. She couldn't refuse his help.

"One step at a time," Kakashi said, swallowing hard. "We'll be ok."

* * *

Karasu snapped water off his fingers as he waded out onto the bank beneath the estate garden. As Jin and Ginta emerged behind him, he examined the burns along his arms critically. "Eno's going to have a fit," he sighed.

"We shouldn't have taken him down there," Jin grumbled, nursing some badly bruised ribs. "If you hadn't been there, we'd be dead."

"Yes, well," Karasu shot him an irritated look. "I wasn't to know Kakashi's a fucking nutjob, was I? Fancy setting a bijuu on your own cousins! Our grandfather's probably rolling in his grave right now."

"We should find him," said Ginta, who had survived pretty much intact by hiding behind a boulder. "He's probably planning to take the girl and make a run for it."

"Almost certainly, and he'll-" Karasu stopped short, turning his head towards the lake. "She's moving out of range. He must have found her."

"Which way?"

Karasu pointed. West.

"Should we get back-up? We'd need more than three of us to go up against the mangekyo sharingan."

"He wouldn't use it against any of us, you idiot. Three is more than enough to-" He broke off again. This time because someone was crunching through the bracken of the sloping garden towards them. Jin and Ginta immediately reached for their swords. There was something off about the footsteps. They were too lurching and doddering to be normal.

Karasu waited until the figure stepped out into the moonlight. He narrowed his eyes.

Jin and Ginta relaxed. "Oh," said Jin. "It's just her."

"I thought she killed herself?" Ginta asked.

"Maybe she's come to drown herself and finish the job?"

Yui stopped, sunken-faced and wheezing, blinked around at them in confusion. It didn't look as if she knew where she was, but when she fixed her unfocused eyes on Karasu she stumbled towards him. "Hey!" Jin yelled, blocking her.

"Leave her," Karasu said dully. "She's gone mad."

"_I... am... not... mad..." _she rasped at him, clutching him by the shirt. Karasu turned his head away to avoid her sickly breath.

"Go back to the house, girl. Aki will take care you," he said, lifting her hands off him.

"I came to tell you-"

"I'm not interested. Go back to the house-"

"About Sakura. She's had you all fooled for so long, but _I _know the truth." Yui cackled madly, delighted by the power of her own knowledge.

Karasu's frown deepened as he watched her. "Jin, Ginta," he said. "Go after Kakashi and the girl. I'll catch up."

"She's nuts, Karasu, just leave her-"

Their leader ignored them. "Go," he ordered loudly. "I want to hear this."

The two men sighed and started off towards the western tree line at a run. Karasu waited until they disappeared before pushing the girl away from him sharply enough to make her tumble to the ground. "Talk fast, and cut out the mad rambling," he told her harshly. "I'm having a bad night, but I'm prepared to listen to you in case you know something I don't that I would be foolish to ignore. So if you're planning on just wasting my time, say so now."

Yui stared at him, frightened. She cringed when he took a step towards her, and suddenly burst into speech. "I knew, I knew, I knew from the moment she got here. Heard it all. At the cottage from the window. She's one of _them."_

"Who?" Karasu asked sharply.

"She was talking to a ninja in a foreign uniform. They were talking about _Konoha_. That's where she's from. She called him 'captain' like he was her leader. She said if they found out she was a spy for Konoha, she was dead."

"A hallucination, perhaps?" Karasu suggested lightly "Do you know how sick you are?"

"I did not imagine it!" Yui snarled. And she had to be sick to snarl at a man like him. "She talked to a man named Yamato and he said he'd come for her with ANBU! She's a kunoichi from Konoha! She said she'd been sending messages for months!"

Karasu's eyes narrowed.

"But that's not the worst of it!" Yui tittered, growing more giddy. She was close to spilling what she was dying to spill. "She's been lying about the baby."

"Oh?"

"Lying, filthy whore – she tried to pass it off as Toshio's because she wanted his money – his name! But I knew. She was pregnant the day she arrived here. It couldn't be Toshio's. I heard her tell her leader. The baby belongs to Hatake Kakashi – the man she's been pretending to sleep with! He's been keeping it from you too!"

Karasu leant down to stare her in the eye. "Sakura is an agent of Konoha and Kakashi is the father of her child?"

Yui nodded ecstatically, like a child awaiting her reward.

He straightened with a dismissive grunt. "I thought I warned you to tell me something I _didn't_ know. You've wasted my time."

Yui's smile faded from her face. She became afraid again.

"Who else have you told?" Karasu asked her, idly sliding the ninjato from its holster on his back.

She shook her head rapidly. "N-No. No one. I came to tell you straight away."

"That simplifies things," he said pleasantly, smiling at her as the blade twitch upwards.

"I already took care of her," said Yui, misunderstanding the reason for his sword. "It's what Toshio would have wanted."

He looked down at her curiously. "How've you taken care of her?"

Some of the sly cat returned to her face. "I pushed her. I killed the baby. Toshio's estate is safe from her now."

Karasu stared at her hard for a long moment, then suddenly the sword swept out and Yui's blood dashed against the pebbles. He watched her furiously as she gurgled and clutched her throat, unable to understand what had happened to her as bright red blood welled between her fingers. She slid sideways on the ground, choking and spitting, until swiftly her mortal clock wound down and she was still.

"Stupid!" Karasu snarled, kicking her body for good measure. He had to step back and rein himself in.

There was still time, he told himself, as he began running towards the trees.

* * *

_One more step. Just make it to the next tree._

"Hey, Sakura," Kakashi said through the quiet. "What's your favourite Naka poem?"

"_What?_" she gasped incredulously. Of all the times to _finally_ show an interest in her poetry…!

"Just humour me. What's your favourite poem?" he asked again.

Sakura staggered on a few more steps before she managed to remember. "The… Enoki Tree… and The Widow…"

"How does it go?"

"You can't expect a poetry recital at a time like this, you-"

"It'll take your mind off the pain," he promised. "Just tell me what it's about."

"It's about… a man who dies-"

"Oh, great. I can see why it's your favourite."

"And his widow buries him beneath a nettle tree, and she mourns him there every day… and… because he sees her loneliness, he feels sad, so – so he grants her a wish. And the next time she picks, cooks, and eats the mushrooms growing on the nettle tree, she gets with child so… so she never has to be lonely again."

After a few more steps, she added in an angry undertone, "But what does Naka know?"

"Do you remember how it goes yet?" he persisted.

"_The smile… shines brighter than the sun on the water. The eyes are warmer… than… than roasted honey combs over the fire. The skin is softer than the finest milk on the crispest morning. The lips redder than the petals of the first rose…"_ She paused a moment, trying to catch her breath as another tree slid by. "I can manage on my own from here, I promise," she panted.

_One more step,_ she thought. _Just make it to the next tree._

"Sakura-"

"I'll be fine!" she said frantically. "It can't be much further, so I'll go on alone and give you time to get out of here. And you won't have to listen to anymore Naka…"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes – _Nnn-aaaaargh!_" Her legs crumbled beneath another painful squeeze, and it was only Kakashi's arm around her that kept her up.

"No, you're not," he grunted, pulling on her arm to start walking again. Had Karasu managed to deal with the Rokubi yet? Was he on their heels right now? A mile away? Half a mile? Would he reach them before they reached the ANBU or their base?

"It's not as bad as it sounds," she tried to tell him. "I'll make it. Yamato and the others are probably a minute away by now."

"Just concentrate on walking, Sakura."

"God, this is so stupid," Sakura ground out through her teeth, blinking angry, bitter tears from her eyes. "How the hell could I have let Yui get the jump on me like that? Who goes somewhere just because a note tells them to? I shouldn't even _be_ here!"

"It's not your fault, Sakura."

"No, it's yours," she hissed as she gave another whimper of pain. "Why couldn't you have worn a condom?!"

"A little late to complain, don't you think?"

Sakura's face was marred by a grimace of pain. "We have to stop," she whispered. "I can't..."

"We have to keep going," he tried to warn her, but when she pushed against his side he was sent staggering.

Sakura didn't notice the look of surprise on his face. She dropped to her knees before a young tree, fingers clutching the bark so tightly her nails were turning white. Another unstoppable wave of pain and pressure rocked her body, and the next thing she knew was Kakashi's hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. He shouldn't have done that. Right then she wanted nothing more than to bite down on his fingers and never, ever let go.

She sealed her lips and held her breath instead, waiting for the pain to pass.

"You better not be pushing!" she heard Kakashi hiss.

"I'm not pushing!" she screamed into his hand. She knew he was only trying to help, but right then everything about him annoyed the hell out of her, right down to how the parting of his hair ran anti-clockwise.

As the pain faded in her abdomen, she noticed a new one in her hands. She opened her eyes to look at them, and noticed most of her fingers had sunk deep gouges into the tree. Blood was pooling around the beds of her nails. She shouldn't have been able to do that. Her base strength wasn't strong enough to cause such damage.

Was her chakra beginning to return...?

If it was, that could only mean one thing. If the baby's chakra was no longer interfering with her own, it had to have left her body... or else... it had to be dead.

"Kakashi-!" she cried, more afraid than ever.

He must have realised the same thing, because suddenly he was behind her, embracing her tightly as he pried her fingers out of the tree and held them firmly in his hands. "It's going to be alright, Sakura," he said calmly into her ear. He sounded so level and confident that she desperately wanted to believe him. "I'm going to lift you up and carry you, ok?"

She shook her head, face red from trying to hold her breath and her tears. "They'll catch you."

"I won't let them catch me," he promised. "You have to trust me."

"I trust you," she gasped, "to say any kind of bullshit right now to shut me up."

His mouth brushed her neck and his nose nudged through her hair. Even through all the pain and the panic, she felt a shiver of adoration. If he was with her, she could do this. She could do anything. "_Trust me,_" he pleaded.

She nodded. Kakashi began to slip his arm underneath her knees to lift her-

"Stop right there, Kakashi."

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut again. _Not now. Please, not now!_

Kakashi eased his arms away and stood slowly. "Ginta. Don't be foolish."

"Says the man who just turned his back on the only family he has for a girl. Like father like son, eh, Kakashi?"

He turned to regard his two cousins standing tensely a few metres away. One of them looked rather worse for wear for taking on the Rokubi. "If you get in my way," he told them, "I will kill you both."

They stared at him baldly. "He doesn't mean that," said Jin, sounding pretty uncertain. "Karasu said he wouldn't-"

"Don't you think it's about time Karasu stopped underestimating just how far I'm willing to go?" he called to them. "Do you really want to try me, boys?"

Ginta gathered himself. "The girl has to come back with us."

"She's hurt, you idiots!" he snapped, just as Sakura let loose another stifled moan. "The baby's in danger. If she doesn't get help, they could both die!"

Sakura made a very strangled sound of panic. So much for keeping his head.

"Eno will help her-"

"Eno knows nothing about childbirth," Kakashi dismissed. "I'm taking her to the ANBU."

"You're mad!" Jin exploded. "If they get hold of you, they'll kill you!"

"They'll be here soon," Ginta said uncomfortably. "Hand over the girl now, Kakashi."

"Did you hear what I said?" Kakashi narrowed his eyes on his cousins. "If she doesn't get help-"

"She dies?" Jin shouted. "So be it! And so shall you!"

Jin's hand lashed out and a slim, weighted wire whizzed through the air to fasten around Kakashi's neck before he could dodge. He pulled. Kakashi grunted, feeling the wire's serrated edge bite into his skin. He grabbed it with one hand and released a burst of electrical chakra.

Jin cried out, falling to his knees, shaking violently. Ginta, always the quicker thinker, leapt forward to sever the wire instantly with a slash of his kunai, before he spun and lifted his arm, releasing a spray of poison tipped needles in Kakashi's direction.

Standing directly in front of Sakura, Kakashi had no option of dodging. He pressed his hands together to perform a quick series of seals, and if the light had been better in the forest, Jin and Ginta would have seen his skin darken and lose all colour. There was no mistaking the clatter of needles that rebounded off his stone-skin and fell to the ground.

Right then the two men hesitated. Were they in over their heads here?

"Go back!" Kakashi barked at them. "Or we'll end this now!"

"You may be the first-born heir, but we obey Karasu!" Jin snarled, grabbing his kunai and lurching forward to attack, close-range.

The first blow of the kunai landed on Kakashi's arm, and once against sparks flew as the blade grated against impenetrable skin. Hard fingers closed over Jin's wrist, holding him steady as Kakashi drew his other hand back and punched him in the stomach. The effect was instantaneous. Jin spluttered blood and reeled back, eyes glazed in shock.

The internal injuries would kill him in minutes. "Take him to Eno if you want him to live." Kakashi told Ginta, who looked pale and sweaty all of a sudden. "I'm done with you brats."

He turned his back and knelt beside Sakura again. Ginta would come at him, he was sure of it. The idiot would follow Karasu's orders to the last like all the rest, however little sense they made, however much harm they brought on themselves. He took the kunai from his belt, fully prepared to use lethal force to defend himself, and sure enough, he heard the pounding footsteps coming closer -

They stopped short. He heard a scuffle and a gasp.

Kakashi turned sharply to see Ginta struggling against the grip of a third man, a ninjato trembling in his restrained hand.

"Stop this," Karasu spat, pushing Ginta behind him. "We _don't _fight each other."

He looked down at Jin quivering on the ground and grimaced. "Take him back to the estate immediately," he told Ginta. "Get your uncle Eno to stop smoking that crap and earn his keep."

Ginta shot Kakashi a very nasty look indeed as he bent to pull Jin's arm around his shoulder, and they took off into the night, fading into the deepening shadows of the forest. Karasu turned his eyes on Kakashi and smiled lightly. It was meaningless.

"That was very rude," he said mildly. "You could have killed us down there."

Kakashi kept both his eyes trained on his cousin, the sharingan spinning alertly. He'd need everything in his arsenal to get past Karasu if he was to get Sakura to safety. "It wasn't personal," he whispered. "I won't let you stop us."

Karasu's gaze flicked to Sakura. Her head was leaning against the tree and she was panting in distress. Even so, her eyes watched Karasu as closely as Kakashi did. "She's hurt," he observed. "Do you think the ANBU will be able to help her?"

"They'll help her," Kakashi said stiffly.

His cousin nodded. "Then she should go to them. Quickly."

Both Kakashi and Sakura seemed to flinch as if he'd struck them. Gradually, Kakashi's skin softened and regained its warmer hue as his defensive jutsu dropped. "_What?" _he hissed.

"Things have changed, haven't they?" Karasu scowled at them. "Do you think I'm so despicable I'd let a mother and child die? Out of spite? The ANBU can have her. She's free to go, Kakashi. But you..."

"What?" Kakashi asked curtly. "You want my life in exchange for hers? Is that it?"

Karasu's expression became pained. "Why do you think so badly of me? Please," he said quietly. "You're my friend."

Kakashi lifted his hand as if to reach out to him, but dropped it quickly. He looked away. "I'm sorry..."

"Is it so bad here with us that you'd throw yourself to the gallows instead of stay?" his cousin ground out. "You'd rather choose the village that wants your blood, instead of the family that loves you?"

"Karasu," Kakashi laughed softly. "You're the only one who loves me."

"Shut up. That sounds so gay."

"You know what I mean..." Kakashi said, stuffing his kunai back into its holster. "I'm taking this girl to the ANBU and their medics no matter what, Karasu. You'll have to fight me to stop me."

Karasu remained where he was, arms relaxed and feet planted loosely on the ground. He didn't intend to fight, so Kakashi nodded and scooped up Sakura into his arms, softly apologising to her as the movement jogged her injuries. He glanced back at Karasu, who was beginning to look rather like a lost, abandoned puppy. "You should go back to the estate and get everyone into hiding while there's still time."

Karasu shook his head. "I already have it sorted."

Whatever that meant.

Karasu saw his concerned expression and cheered up a little. "Goodbye, Kakashi," he said gently, and then turned to walk back to the estate.

Kakashi watched him for a moment, then began to walk in the opposite direction, deeper into the forest. In his arms, Sakura was practically feverish. "Put me down," she begged, "I can't – stand it!"

"Not yet," Kakashi huffed, ducked under a low-hanging branch.

"Yes, now!" Sakura cried out. "Please, Kakashi!"

He ignored her and ran on. The forest was so dark that without his sharingan he would have been totally lost. But he'd already used it so much tonight that with every metre of ground covered, he could feel himself weakening. He needed to rest. Sakura's pain, guttural cries kept him going. He couldn't fail her now. Not now.

Sakura never stopped begging. "I hear them coming," she gasped to him. "It's alright to leave me here and go."

Kakashi could hear nothing. "I won't leave you," he said firmly, and because he knew he had to distract her from her pain, he added, "Do you remember when Pakkun got bitten by a snake and you accompanied me to the vet because the venom was eating away his paw?"

"Uh-hm," Sakura moaned her acknowledgment between compressed lips.

"You sat with me in the waiting room for three hours on a gorgeous day because you thought I was going to cry and might need a shoulder. You didn't abandon me then either."

"Different," she panted. "Very different."

"It's exactly the same," he said dismissively. "Don't ask me to walk away from you like this."

She choked back a sob. "You have to."

There. Finally. He could hear the distant crashes of leaves, like a large group of people were moving very fast through the dark trees some way ahead of them. Kakashi sighed and stopped at last, lowering Sakura gently to her feet where she leaned her forehead against his chest and groaned low against another wave of pain that threatened to buckle her knees. He doubted she could hear the ANBU's approach.

"You're going home now," he said softly, wrapping his arms around her, knowing it would be the last time. "I'm sorry it took so long."

"Go... please, go," Sakura begged, trying to push him away from her. "_GO!"_

He heard voices shouting, growing nearer. They'd heard her. Kakashi held her fast. "I love you," he whispered.

She sobbed freely, tears dripping down her cheeks. "If you loved me then you'd save yourself! For me!"

When he inhaled, his chest trembled. Something wet dashed down his own face. Rain, probably. "I don't want to," he croaked. "I have to face what I've done."

The pale white, smiling faces of animals appeared around them, one-by-one, looking on at them silently through the darkness. Kakashi pressed her closely and bent his head to whisper into her ear. Sakura clenched his fingers into his vest. Whatever physical pain she was in was nothing compared to what he was putting her through.

Shadows crawled forward. Kakashi cupped her face to press a kiss to his mouth... and his lips only faintly brushed against hers before he was ripped away with force enough to dislocate his arm. He was thrown to the ground.

Sakura stared around in horror. ANBU were swarming around her. They were speaking to her, touching her shoulder, asking her if she could move. What were these faceless monsters? She tried to turn and call for Kakashi, find out where he was, but they were blocking in around her like a wall, stopping her from seeing the others swarming around him.

"Sakura, you're bleeding! What happened?"

"Taichou...?" she breathed. Which one of this animal faces was he behind?

The pale face of cat loomed above her. "Sakura, you're bleeding..."

She followed his gaze listlessly, and saw the black stain of blood in the lap of her dress. "I'm sorry," she gasped, mortified. "The baby-"

Tenzou thrust his mask up out of the way. "Medic!"

An ANBU, indistinguishable from the rest, broke away to crouch beside Sakura. She hardly attended. She was trying to look over Tenzou's shoulder at the other agents swarming like vultures over a carcass. She could hear them shouting things to each other, coordinating. "Get his hands!" "Where's the tape?" "Watch his eye – watch his eye!" "Got him?" "Yeah..." "Hold his shadow tight." "It's ok, he's not resisting." "Where's the damn tape? We're not moving until his eyes have been taped!"

"She's broken her ribs," said the medic beside her. "I can fix them if we get her lying down, but the contractions-"

"We don't have time," Tenzou interrupted. "Unseal the stretcher. We have to get her to Konoha as quickly as possible_._ Shikamaru?"

"I've got him. We're good to go, Taichou," said the man standing quite still a little apart from everyone else, hands clasped oddly in front of him. His shadow stretched off towards the other group of masked nin.

"We'll return to base and use the transport. Team B can take over the infiltration."

"Lie down, please, Haruno-san."

Sakura resisted the stretcher that had been produced from one of the medic's scrolls. "Kakashi-"

"It's ok, we've got him," said the medic. "He can't hurt you any-"

Sakura pushed him away violently, perhaps harder than she meant to due to the latest shudder of pain that ran through her. "_How dare you!_" she screamed. "_You know nothing!_"

Several hands grabbed her arms, forcing her down onto the stretcher whether she was willing or not. "Sakura, you're bleeding heavily," she heard Tenzou say. "We can't afford to waste time here. Just lie still and let us help you."

"Don't you hurt him," she ground out through her teeth. "Don't you dare hurt him!"

But they talked over her, ignoring her, dismissing her as hysterical or delirious. The stretcher was eased up and carried so swiftly she felt like she was losing all sense of reality. Things were moving too fast. A little while ago it had been on torturous step after another just to make it to the next tree, but it had given her something to concentrate on besides the urgent pain inside her. The fear that her body was violently forcing out the baby because it was dead.

Now everything was out of her control. The ANBU were carrying her now, and no one was listening to her muttered, choked pleas on Kakashi's behalf. All she could do was stare up at the half-moon flashing in and out of sight through the forest canopy above her, and feel with screaming acuteness every one of her agonies with nothing she could do or say to distract herself. She was a leaf in the wind, battered whichever way fate decided to throw her now. It was all out of her control.

It could have been one minute or twenty later for all Sakura cared, when they burst into the clearing. A dozen more ANBU were waiting for them, crowding around to help lift her to the middle of a cleared patch of forest, right into the centre of a large square formed by four incredibly elaborate scrolls unrolled end to end, suspended between four marked posts. She looked around dizzily and saw people looking back at her. Some even lifted their masks to stare in even more open bemusement.

But something else was grabbing their attention too. Heads turned as the rest of the group joined the clearing and Sakura tried to twist to see, because she already knew why everyone had suddenly tensed. Kakashi had walked through the trees. The sealing tape normally used on shinobi prisoners to prevent them from using chakra was binding his hands together in front of him. Not only that, but it had been wrapped around his head too, covering his eyes to prevent him using the sharingan and around his mouth to prevent him speaking. The only way he had made it through the forest was because Shikamaru's shadow was attached to him. When Shikamaru stopped, Kakashi stopped. When Shikamaru glanced tentatively at Sakura, Kakashi's head turned in her direction too, unseeingly.

She wanted to cry out for him, or shout at him and tell him what a stupid idiot he was, but she turned her head away and closed her eyes. Another wave of pain made her grit her teeth and groan loudly. The medic was trying to attend to her side. His chakra invaded her like pins and she wanted dearly to smack him away again. Tsunade would never let her get away with such woefully inadequate care.

"Team A, gather in the square," Tenzou called. "We're leaving immediately. Team B will have to make it back to Konoha on foot once they've finished with the remainder of the mission, so-"

"Taichou!" Three men and a woman ran into the base. "Ame nin are approaching!"

Everyone ceased moving. Tenzou looked worried. "They followed us?"

"Or someone tipped them off. They're a couple minutes behind us – if they catch us here there'll be trouble. It'll be taken as an act of war."

"We can't risk another one..."

Sakura watched from her stretcher as Tenzou made a reluctant expression and waved his hands. "There's nothing we can do. Get everyone in the transport, we're _all_ leaving. We already got what we came for anyway." He looked down at Sakura and knelt to take her hand.

Needing _something_ to cling to, she accepted it, but she closed her eyes and wished it was Kakashi's. Around them ANBU pressed in, gathering within the confines of the square formed by the scrolls. Five of them began muttering the incantation of the jutsu. "Hold on, Sakura," Tenzou whispered to her. "You'll be home in just a few moments."

"Please," she whispered. "You have to listen to me-"

"Just concentrate on breathing, Sakura, nice and slow," he said, as someone began a countdown behind them.

"_Ten... nine... eight..."_

"Kakashi didn't know... he never meant any harm..."

"You can't know that-"

"I do – _please, taichou-"_

"There's nothing I can do now, Sakura," he said quietly, looking over her head. Looking at Kakashi who had been forced to his knees.

"_...six... five... four..."_

Sakura jerked her hand away and returned it to the edge of the stretcher. She squeezed so hard the metal bar warped. The pain was building again, irresistible and mindless, this time accompanied by a sharp, metallic charge in the hair that prickled her skin. Before this contraction was over, she would be home, she told herself

"_...three..."_

She didn't want to go home.

"_...two..."_

Sakura bit back a scream of agony.

"_...one."_

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Hero's Homecoming._


	40. The Hero's Homecoming

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Hero's Homecoming

* * *

_And you really didn't think it would happen_

_But it really is the end of the line_

_So I'm sorry that you turned to driftwood_

_But you've been drifting for a long long time_

* * *

Ino stood at the side of the training hall, twisting her hands anxiously in front of her stomach, and dividing her time between watching the clock on the wall and watching her tight-faced Hokage pacing around the square of scrolls in the middle of the room. Besides the clock, Tsunade's footsteps were the only sound that echoed around this quiet room, which by day played host to training chunin, but tonight had been restricted for use by the Hokage and a select number of her most trusted ANBU operatives. And Ino. They all kept as perfectly still and poised as their Hokage was restless and irritable. Ino looked to the clock again and began chewing what was left of her thumb nail.

"What's taking so long?" Tsunade asked, for the third time that hour, and by now Ino and the ANBU around her knew not to respond.

Any minute now, the scrolls would activate and Sakura would appear... barring no dire problems had occurred on this mission, and when that happened, Ino wasn't sure what she was supposed to do or say. She hadn't seen her friend in months, and god only knew how big she was now. Was she supposed to smile and say congratulations? What if Sakura was desperately unhappy about the whole thing?

Ino didn't really know what to expect, and nor did she understand why Sakura's return warranted the involvement of a score of ANBU agents. She didn't even know why Tsunade had summoned her in particular to be part of the welcome committee, other than some vague comment about wanting a medic on hand 'just to be sure'. Considering Tsunade herself was ten times more advanced than she was, Ino doubted she was being asked along for her medical expertise.

All she knew was that the ANBU were bringing back Sakura and Kakashi from the mission Ino had traded to her. Perhaps she was here because she was one of the few people who knew Sakura was pregnant, and Tsunade wanted to keep the matter contained as much as possible?

She began to open her mouth to ask, again, just _why_ she was here, but Tsunade seemed to sense the impending irritance and pre-emptively glared her into silence. Ino shut her mouth with a click and went back to biting her nail.

Until suddenly, between one moment and the next, the training hall turned to chaos.

With a great flash the four scrolls hung between the posts in the middle of the room exploded into ash and the quiet training room filled with bodies. The room came alive with the sound of movement, calls for help, and a woman's hoarse cries. The ticking of the clock faded underneath the din. Tsunade surged forward through the throng of ANBU who had to move out of her way quickly or get thrown.

Ino stayed against the wall, shocked. Her eyes ran over the sea of black and white uniforms and caught on the flash of red.

_Sakura...!_

Belatedly she realised the cries were coming from her friend. Something had gone wrong. Why was she lying on the floor on an emergency stretcher, eyes clenched tightly in pain? Ino hurried forward, beating her own path through the milling ANBU to drop to her knees beside the Hokage. A maskless Tenzou was kneeling opposite, talking very fast. "Our medic looked at her and found two broken ribs, and she's having regular contractions every couple of minutes. She says they started after she fell. She needs to be taken to the hospital at once. I think the baby's on the way-"

Sakura opened unfocused eyes. "Shishou... I'm so sorry... I didn't tell you..."

"It can wait, Sakura." It had been a long time since Ino had seen the Hokage looking so pale, drawn and... _old. _ She stroked the Sakura's hair like a mother with one hand with her passed over her belly, chakra glowing visibly around it. "I need to know how far along you are?"

"Eight... eight months... it's too early..."

Ino's hand, in the process of reaching for one of Sakura's stopped in mid-air. Tsunade must have noticed the same thing because a similar frown flickered momentarily over her face.

But Sakura had only been gone for _six_ months.

Whatever questions had just been raised would have to wait. Tsunade grabbed the sleeve of the ANBU medic holding one end of the stretcher. "Take her to the hospital. Give her steroids to strengthen the baby's lungs, and magnesium might prolong the pregnancy if necessary. _Make sure_ they heal the ribs first. Give her painkillers too-"

"Yes! Drugs!" Sakura gasped, rolling her head back.

"I'll go with her," Ino said, thinking this was why she'd been called up. Tsunade must have known Sakura was injured. That must have been why she'd returned early.

"No," Tsunade said sharply. "You're not here for Sakura."

"But-"

Tsunade silenced her with a hand. "Take her!" she barked at the ANBU.

Ino watched helplessly as the men picked up the stretcher and carried her to the double doors being held open by two other ANBU. It didn't feel right that she and Tsunade were not following. And it was testament to how absurdly Sakura could make such a pig's ear out of _anything _that she needed three ANBU divisions in order to have a baby.

"I-I don't understand," Sakura said, looking around at the Hokage. "What am I here for then?"

She looked at Tenzou who slid his gaze back to Tsunade, who in turn was staring at him. "It's been confirmed?"

Tenzou nodded faintly. His face was stoic, but his eyebrows betrayed a tiny shrug that left Ino confused. He looked... upset.

"Did you capture him?"

"He didn't resist."

"Where is he?" Tsunade demanded quietly, as if steeling herself.

Tenzou made a gesture with his hand and the ANBU around them began to draw back, giving them a clear line of sight to the only man in this room who wasn't dressed in black and white fatigues. Ino didn't recognise him at first. His clothes were foreign, his eyes were covered along with his mouth, and his hair was loose and longer than she had ever seen it before. She couldn't recognise his posture either, as he was being forced to mimic Shikamaru's exactly.

"Who is that?" Ino asked uncertainly, and just a little impatiently. Random prisoners of war did _not _rank higher in her priorities than friends in premature labour.

Tsunade ignored the question. She walked slowly towards the man until she was standing before him, close, looking up into his censored face. If he was aware she was there, he couldn't show it while Shikamaru still held his shadow.

She reached up and tore the tape away from his mouth.

"In all my years," Tsunade began in a low, emotional voice. "I have never been so ashamed of myself. You've made a fool of me and of this village. Are you proud of yourself?"

The man didn't respond.

"How long have you been laughing behind our backs, Kakashi?"

"I found no amusement in what I did, Hokage-sama," came the unmistakably familiar baritone voice.

Ino's mouth literally dropped open. Now she _really_ didn't understand. That man standing there, being restrained and accused of treason, was _Hatake Kakashi​? _Arguably the most famous jonin in the country, if not the entire continent?

"Do you have anything to say for yourself now?" Tsunade demanded.

"You don't want to hear excuses from me, and I don't have any to give," he replied quietly.

Tsunade gave a growl of rage and her fist lashed out. Shikamaru released the shadow-bind jutsu in time before the punch landed on Kakashi's jaw, sending him sprawling through the dust and ash that had once been the scrolls; if he'd held him still, that hit may have knocked the head clean off Kakashi's shoulders.

"I don't understand," Ino whispered again, staring at Kakashi as he slowly picked himself off the floor. This was Sakura's teacher. He'd never meant more to her than a casual acquaintance and an occasional team-mate, but every time she had looked at him she'd always been reminded of her own sensei. She'd been glad of it.

Now she looked at Tenzou, searching for some reassurance that she was simply misunderstanding. He'd been a close acquaintance of Kakashi's for longer than most people in this village, and yet he was looking at the floor with an odd expression.

He was hurting badly.

Tsunade turned away. "Take him down to interrogation," she snapped. "Room fifty-five. Don't any of you dare go easy on him."

As a couple of ANBU moved in to grab Kakashi by his arms and drag him the rest of the way to his feet and escort him none too gently in the direction of the door, Tsunade waved a hand dismissing the rest of the gathered agents. She turned to Ino, who was still shell-shocked. "I hoped it wouldn't come to this. I hoped I wouldn't need your services," she said to her, "but as you can see we've just captured a very high level Syndicate operative."

Ino's mouth dropped lower. "I don't believe it!" she cried. "Kakashi-sensei would never-"

"Ino," Tenzou warned.

She glared at him. "He's your friend – how could you think he would be working for the enemy?!"

"I saw it," he said quietly. "My clone was captured and I met with the Syndicate's leader. Kakashi was there too. He_ is _one of them."

"We have to move swiftly," Tsunade told her. "Ibiki will work him over first, then I want you to go into his head and extract what you can about the Syndicate. You _will not_ mention this to anyone else. The last thing this village needs is it coming out that our most eminent jonin is working with Iwa. Morale can't take it. All that will be publicised is that we've captured one of their spies. Got it?"

"I understand," she hedged, "but... if it's all the same to you, I want to go to Sakura. At least until Ibiki needs me."

Tsunade nodded and looked to Tenzou. "I want you to start arrangements for another expedition to the estate. We're probably too late and they've already left, but at least we might be able to gather clues they left behind."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," he bowed deeply. "I can have a team ready by tomorrow morning."

"But who...?"

Tsunade and Tenzou looked at Ino, the former tilting her head. "Who?"

She swallowed. "Who's the father?" she rasped. "I want to know who did this to her."

Here, the Hokage glanced briefly at Tenzou, but Tenzou took care to frown as if the question puzzled him too. Tsunade's gaze lingered on him a moment, before returning to Ino. "Even if I knew, that's the least important question right now. Sakura's in a bad way... to be honest, I don't think this baby is going to survive. She says she went into labour after she fell, but that was a while ago and the damage might already be done..."

"Do you think that's true?" Tenzou asked sharply. "That she fell?"

Tsunade turned to him coolly. "You're thinking she's lying to cover for him?"

He shrugged helplessly. He didn't want to believe it, but if it had been anyone else he wouldn't have thought twice about the possibility.

"You think Kakashi hurt her on purpose...?" Ino asked blankly.

The Hokage shook her head, unwilling to commit to any speculation. "Go organise the mission," she said again to Tenzou. "In the mean time, I think someone should send a message to the Waterfall border and tell Naruto he needs to come home as soon as possible. Ino, you're coming with me."

* * *

The pain of the contractions felt almost bearable once the ANBU medic, who'd accompanied her all the way from the rain country, finally set her ribs. The gas and air probably helped too. Sakura sucked away greedily on her mask while nurses and medics picked at her like vultures around a corpse. They pinched at her arm to find a vein, tugged on her clothes to push them out of the way, and pulled her legs apart to look dispassionately between them. In truth, Sakura no longer cared. She didn't care that there were more people looking up her dress right now than had ever before in her life. She didn't care that she was back in Konoha hospital, and that half the people attending her were people she had worked with and who were going about their work with a vacant expression of shock. She barely gave a second thought to the look on Ino's face when her friend had seen her, and at that moment, Hatake Kakashi was almost the furthest thing from her mind.

Sakura's universe was the delivery room, and everything beyond its walls were now beyond her comprehension. All she felt was pain, and all she saw was that damn nurse approaching with the foetal heart monitor to strap around her belly. The machine terrified her. She knew that once those probes were switched on, there was a good chance there would be nothing to hear but a deathly silence. No heartbeat. No movement. Nothing. The final confirmation that she'd killed the baby in the fall.

The nurse dithered as she showed Sakura the probes. "I'm going to strap this to you, Sakura-san. It'll measure the baby's heart rate and-"

"_Get on with it!" _was just about all Sakura could articulate, though it was still quite impressive. The nurse jumped and fumbled to obey.

Another contraction tore through her and Sakura grabbed the railings of her bed with a huff of pain. Her eyes squeezed shut to focus on riding out the agony, but she was still acutely aware of the monitor being attached around her middle. She waited. Where was the sound of that thudding little heart she'd come to know?

Why was the room so quiet?

"Is he...?" Sakura panted, and it was difficult to speak around the lump in her throat.

"Heart rate is low and slightly arrhythmic..." she said, looking at the readout from the monitor.

Sakura's eyes sprang open. A cry of relief nearly broke uncontrollably from her throat, but the joy of knowing that there was any heartbeat _at all_ was dying swiftly as she fully comprehended what the woman had said. No wonder the nurse was having trouble meeting her gaze.

"The baby can't be getting enough oxygen," said the medic peering between her legs. "If it's not born soon it'll die, and you're not nearly dilated enough yet."

"S-Surgery," Sakura stammered, gritting her teeth against another wave. "I need a c-section. Give me a spinal block..."

Tsunade was suddenly there at the end of the bed. "Are you sure you want to be awake for this? We could always give you a general anaesthetic."

Just when her shishou had entered the delivery room, Sakura could only guess, but she suspected she'd been grinding her teeth too hard to hear the door slide open. "No, I want to be awake-"

"Only so she can keep bossing everyone around," said Ino at her side. Sakura looked at her warily, afraid she would see accusation and one hell of an inquisition waiting to burst forth – and she did. But at least Ino was willing to bottle it up for now and did nothing more than take a deep breath and grab hold of her hand, determined to act as a friend ought to in this kind of situation. She was squeezing a little hard though.

"We don't have time to argue," Tsunade said shortly. "Start prepping her. The surgeries are totally full tonight so we'll have to perform it here. That's what you get for deciding to have a baby in the middle of a war, Sakura."

"I'll remember that next time," Sakura rasped.

"'Next time', she says," Tsunade grumbled, walking away to begin scrubbing her hands and arms while nurses buzzed around Sakura more ferociously, urging her to sit up as a medic with an over-large needle approached the bed.

"You know," said Ino, attempting to distract her. "I wasn't planning on becoming an aunt quite this soon. But you can make it up to me if you let me name it."

Sakura didn't know if it was wise to presume that the baby would live to take a name at this point. And anyway... "You're not allowed. Someone already named him..."

"Oh yeah?" Ino raised her eyebrows. "Who called dibs before me, huh? I bet it's a lame name anyway."

"Yeah, probably," she said. Her mind listlessly flicked back to the place in the dark forest where Kakashi had last held her. When he'd bent his head to whisper it her ear, it had been the last thing he'd said to her. Then the ANBU had torn him away...

The needle's jab into her back was almost as much of a violent interruption. Sakura was bought back down to her hospital bed with a pained grunt, and now she was the one squeezing Ino's hand too hard. The relief was that at least the painkiller was a fast-acting one, and within moments she felt herself going numb. The pain – all of it – faded. She couldn't even feel the nurse leaning against her legs.

"You ok?" Ino whispered, noting the almost serene expression on Sakura's face.

"Mm." Compared to how she'd felt moments ago, the sudden absence of pain was nothing short of absolute bliss. It was difficult to feel truly relieved, however. Not when she knew she was about to be cut open. Especially since no one seemed very sure this baby was ready to be born at all. Yet the pain filled haze that had clouded her mind had lifted and she found she could, at least for a moment, find new focus. "Ino..." she whispered.

"Uh huh?"

"What did they do with Kakashi?" she asked quietly.

"Uh..." Ino glanced around, perhaps wondering if she was allowed to talk about it. "Kakashi-sensei was taken to the intelligence department. For interrogation."

Sakura swore softly under her breath.

"Hey, Sakura," Ino began curiously, "how did you fall?"

She thought for a moment. "Off a cliff?" she answered vaguely.

"A cliff?" Ino echoed incredulously. "Just like that?"

"Pushed," she answered again with a sigh. "I was pushed."

Ino stared hard at her. "By Kakashi?"

Sakura flushed and turned a hot glare on her. "By one of the other serving girls."

"So... a regular serving girl got the jump on you, huh? The apprentice of the most famous kunoichi in the land?" Ino gave her an incredulous look. She clearly thought Sakura was bullshitting her and that only another ninja could have harmed her... a ninja like Kakashi. Sakura wanted to explain about the incompatibility syndrome that had cost her her chakra, an ability so instinctive and second-nature to her that in the split second she'd seen Yui's hands coming at her and she'd had the choice between evading or simply digging her chakra into the ground to hold her firm... she'd chosen wrongly.

Now she was paying the price for that oversight, and she didn't have the energy or patience to do anything but screw up her face and grunt, "It's complicated."

"Save the interrogation for later, we have to begin," Tsunade said shortly before Ino could open her mouth. She'd returned to the bedside with gloves and a surgical apron. "Ino, you should scrub up too."

Ino's hand slipped from Sakura's and very suddenly she was aware that _this was it_. Tsunade was wiping her belly with disinfectant and one of the nurses was holding up a scalpel for examination in the light. Another was hanging a blanket in such a way that Sakura explicitly couldn't watch what they did to her. From the neck down, she could see nothing.

Fear bubbled up her spine. "I'm not ready," she blurted.

"This part's very easy for you," Tsunade said simply. "Just lie back and let me handle things now."

She felt two nurses take her arms and begin to tie them down. "Wait – I don't want-"

"It's just a precaution, you know that," her shishou said softly. "You have to remain still."

Sakura tried to obey, but she couldn't stop the trembles that quivered through her body. She thought Tsunade might snap at her to stop moving; she was shaking so hard she wondered if she'd bounce right off the table. But it wasn't fear. She felt cold, but it wasn't exactly that either. The gravity of her situation, now that the anaesthetic had taken away the pain and given her room to think, was hitting her like a volley of arrows. She couldn't stop her teeth from chattering, even when Ino returned and took her immobilised hand back.

"Is everyone ready?" Tsunade asked quietly.

The nurses and stand-by medics uttered soft noises of assent. Only Sakura's little voice squeaked, "_No!_" but Tsunade was inclined to ignore her anyway.

"I'm starting to cut," she said.

Sakura closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She would never really get used to local anaesthetics – of being cut open and unable to feel a thing. It might have been better if she had been able to look down and see what was happening, but then she also had the feeling that even though she'd seen and performed countless operations, it was very different to see it performed on oneself. It could just very well be the last straw for her sanity right now.

She waited, tense and silent, for Tsunade to explain what she was doing next. She could see her shishou moving and the faint shimmer of sweat on her forehead along with the faint reflection of flickering blue light. She was using chakra. The way Ino was position, she could see beyond the sheet obscuring Sakura's view, and she was staring in grim silence. Suddenly, her clammy hand flexed convulsively over Sakura's. A moment later and Sakura felt a strong pressure. Her insides were being pulled out, she thought dazedly, as Tsunade pushed and pulled and pressed her lips together in a hard line of deep concentration.

Her head rolled restlessly against her pillow. She looked at Ino for a clue, but the girl was nothing but a pale statue. She looked at the nurses but they were too busy watching the procedure or watching the monitors. A movement at the window made her freeze. She stared and stared and although she saw nothing now, for a brief moment she thought she'd seen the silhouette of something big and black flapping away into the night.

"Close the windows," she whispered urgently. "There's something out there."

The nearest nurse looked down at her distractedly, before glancing at the windows. Seeing nothing, she turned her attention back to Sakura's IV.

Next to her, Ino gasped. The pressure in her abdomen stopped as abruptly as it had started and Tsunade was straightening up. "It's here," she said, without any celebration or pleasure in her voice.

Sakura thought her heart might have stopped. Her arms jerked against their restraints as she instinctively tried to reach out. She wanted to shout and demand to see her own baby, but a creeping fear made her hesitant. Why wasn't he crying? Why did everyone look so worried? Why was Ino looking at, of all things, the floor?

No one said anything. A nurse whisked past carrying a bundle of bloody cloth, out of which Sakura thought she glimpsed one tiny chalk-white arm. All of a sudden, Sakura was quite certain that it was the first and last time she would see him. The door slammed shut in the nurse's wake, and the room now felt so much quieter than before. She'd expected Tsunade to say something – declare it was all over, confirm the gender – _anything._ But Tsunade was still working as furiously as ever, and when she _did_ say something to one of the nurses Sakura realised she could barely hear her.

"Go..." Sakura whispered to Ino, wondering why she could no longer feel her friend's grip, even though she could see her hand squeezing her own tightly. Looking down, it felt like her own limb was miles away from her. "You have to see the baby... make sure he's ok."

Ino just looked at her. "No, I won't leave you."

"I'm fine," Sakura tried to insist, by her thoughts were connecting too slowly with her mouth, making her voice come out sluggishly. "The baby-"

"Sakura, you're _not_ fine!" Ino hissed, her over-bright eyes fixed on Sakura's face. "You're haemorrhaging-"

"Ino!" Tsunade called abruptly. "Get me a blood replenishing solution_ now!_ I can't stop the bleeding."

"No," Sakura muttered, as Ino vanished from her side. "No, you have to close up now."

No one answered her.

"What's happening? I need to be done..." She was tired and heavy, and she knew that if she stopped talking she would fall asleep, but... "Where's my baby? Why did she take him...?"

"You have to stay with us, Sakura," said her shishou, but she sounded so far away.

"I'm fine," she tried to say. Darkness was embracing her tightly. She began to stop caring about resisting it. "I just want my baby..."

"What's his name, Sakura?"

"What?" she asked dizzily, the lights in the room were winking in and out like someone was playing with the light switch.

"The baby's name?" said the distant voice. "What do you want to call him?"

This was a matter that usually came up later, but in a tiny moment of clarity she knew that there might not be a later, either for her or this child.

The lights faded again and she saw instead the rainforest at night, with the moonlight striking the trees and the bare face of the man before her. The darkness swallowed everything up again as he leaned in to her and pressed his mouth against her ear – a kiss, and a half-whispered suggestion.

"_Enoki isn't such a bad name, don't you think?"_ he'd said. _"For a boy."_

And then he'd been torn from her arms like a criminal.

Sakura opened her mouth to speak, but she wasn't sure if any sounds emerged. She knew she had slipped out of consciousness for a moment, because the next thing she knew was a searing pain like fire racing up through her veins. Ino had jabbed a needle into her arm. As she cried and convulsed, somewhere close by a door crash open and someone screamed her name.

* * *

Kiba yawned as he stretched on the wooden platform of the Tree-house. The wind had changed and the smell of burning had faded with the rise of the moon. He was glad. It meant he could sleep now without pulling his shirt over his nose, which wasn't exactly pleasant either since he hadn't been able to bathe in two weeks. Not as bad as Akamaru, however, who hadn't bathed in twelve years besides the odd dip in a stagnant pond. But Kiba, used to his smell, had no qualms about using his enormous dog as a pillow on this chilly March night and soak in his warmth.

The snores of other nin punctuated the quiet night, along with the distant, delayed pops of explosions. It was quieter than usual. Up here along the waterfall border, Iwa had the high-ground, but were bottle-necked in the valley. The situation was a stalemate, and all they could do was keep picking each other off like flies until the higher-ups decided to change tactics. Or until there was no one left to fight.

"Uzumaki Naruto?" whispered a soft voice, creeping along lines of sleeping nin.

Kiba cracked an eye open. "He's out on scout duty," he grunted back, before the messenger could wake up anyone else.

The messenger pushed something at him. "Give him this when you see him. Urgent, from the Hokage, just arrived over the long-range radio."

"Urgent? For me?" croaked a blond head emerging from beneath a blanket a few places away.

Kiba bolted upright. "You're supposed to be scouting!" he hissed.

"I am!" Naruto hissed back, rubbing his eyes. "I have thirty odd clones running around. If there's any incursions tonight I'll know about it in seconds. Might as well catch up on some sleep while I wait, right?"

"Jeez." Kiba gave an envious grunt and thumped his head on Akamaru's flank as he lay back down. His dog only gave a deep, sleepy sigh in response.

"Gimme the message," Naruto held out his hand and the messenger handed over a slip of folded paper before slipping away up the ladder to the communication level above.

Naruto had to get out of bed and stagger over in his underclothes to the dim lantern hung against one of the trees at the edge of their platform. He held it up closely to read.

"Whassit say?" Kiba grunted.

"Says... I'm being granted leave to return to Konoha on account of... oh."

"What?" Kiba pried open his eyes to look at the other man standing with his back turned.

"Sakura's arrived back from her mission, but she's been taken ill. Tsunade thinks I should be there."

Kiba sat up again, the grumpiness and fatigue falling away immediately. Everyone knew that if you were called back because a close friend had been 'taken ill', it wasn't because they'd caught a cold. It was because this might be the last chance to say goodbye. He opened his mouth again, but not knowing what to say he was forced to close it again. After a moment he tried again. "Does it say what's wrong with her...?"

"No," Naruto said in a hushed, sleep-deprived croak. "Just that they've identified one of the spies too."

"Oh. Well that's some good news at least," Kiba said cheerlessly. Naruto hurried past him, back to his sleeping mat to find his clothes. "I wonder who it was...? There's rumours it was a very high up jonin, but the investigation's been hushed up. I hope Sakura didn't get hurt because she found out who it was.... poor Sakura. Hey, Naruto, do you think that-"

He stopped, because the moment he turned to address the other ninja, he realised he was talking to himself. Naruto had vanished, leaving only a rumpled blanket and a faintly blowing breeze.

* * *

Anko slammed the receiver down upon the communication console with relish. "There," she proclaimed, swivelling in her chair to give Tenzou a saucy wink. "Now _what_ shall I ask for in return?"

"The message was on behalf of the Hokage," he said flatly. "I don't owe you anything."

She pouted. "What's the matter with you, Woody? You should be happy! We've caught one of the spies."

"And Sakura's life is in danger," he reminded her.

"Oh, whatever," Anko snorted dismissively. "Everyone's life is in danger these days. It's less troublesome being on the front-lines, I swear."

Yes, he thought, but in this case Tenzou wondered if it wasn't _his_ _own _fault that Sakura was now in this condition. He shook his head in exasperation at Anko and headed for the trapdoor exit of the communication headquarters. She pulled a face at his back. "Fine! Be a grump! See if I care!"

Tenzou wasn't listening. He descended down the wooden staircase winding around the great tree, wondering if Sakura might have been better off if he'd tried to extract her the moment he'd found her, regardless of the 'tag' on her face. He'd left her, only for half an hour or so, but that had been enough time for Kakashi to find her.

His sempai hadn't actually... gone and tried to _hurt _her, had he? He didn't want to believe that Kakashi was capable of going that far, but then he'd never thought he was capable of betraying the village either...

He came to a stop at the top of the steps carved into the mountain that led down to the village with all its twinkling lights. Only a handful of people down there knew about Hatake Kakashi now. Things like this had happened before, in Konoha and in other villages. High profile shinobi defected in times of crisis, and the administration would hush it up if they could. If spies were caught they could remain locked up till the end of the war without anyone realising. Usually they were executed, and the truth would take years to surface.

How would it be for Kakashi?

Heaving a sigh to push the leaden air from his lungs, he made his way down the steps before turning in the direction of the hospital. Sakura would be alright, he told himself. Under the care of someone like Tsunade, she was guaranteed to pull through ok. But what about her baby? _Kakashi's_ baby?

The Hokage would have to be told about that eventually. Tenzou already knew he was in trouble for not volunteering the information when he'd learnt about it months ago and he dreaded what kind of tortures he'd be subjected to now if he was the one to break it to Tsunade that Sakura's child had been fathered by a village traitor. He'd kept it to himself before because he'd wanted to protect Kakashi. Now... he just wanted to protect Sakura.

He crossed onto the main street and looked across the grassy plateau to where the hospital rose taller than the surrounding buildings, brightly lit and bustling more than ever. Since the water contaminations and epidemics, there hadn't been a day gone by when the hospital wasn't full to the brim. Beds were impossible to come by. But being the apprentice of the Hokage hopefully meant Sakura had been secured-

"Tenzou!" a shout ran across the street.

Tenzou turned in surprise to see none other than Naruto running towards him, a little out of breath and mussed as if he'd just gotten out of bed and run all the way there. He looked back over his shoulder at the Hokage monument from which he'd just descended. "I only just sent that message to the border..." he said wonderingly as Naruto came to a breathless stop before him.

Hands on knees, the young man made a dismissive flap of his hand. "Hiraishin," he gasped, "Had a tag... in apartment... can summon back... in emergencies... said Sakura was sick... figured... probably an emergency..."

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Tenzou had been hoping that several days would elapse before Naruto arrived back and by then _he_ himself would have found a nice hiding place. He had definitely not planned on being the one to meet and greet and break the news to Naruto about his two closest friends and team-mates.

Finally catching his breath, Naruto straightened. "She's in the hospital?" he asked anxiously.

"Yeah..." Tenzou said awkwardly.

"What's wrong? Is she ok?" Naruto panted.

"I... I don't have the clearance to tell you," he mumbled in reply, noticing the boy's eyes widened.

"What do you mean you don't have clearance to tell me?!" Naruto cried. "I just got summoned back to see her!"

"I know, I know," said Tenzou, "but the nature of her problem is... well, delicate. I'll take you to the Hokage and she'll explain. She's probably tending to Sakura right now."

"Fine – yes – take me!" Naruto demanded hotly.

"This way."

Tenzou led him the rest of the way across the plaza and into the hospital entrance. He paused at the front desk to make a low inquiry about Sakura's location, before he took Naruto into the elevator and rode to the fifth floor. If the boy noticed that they were following all the signs for the 'labour and delivery' unit, he didn't say anything. It wasn't unusual with the bed shortage for people with poisoning to end up in paediatrics, or those with broken bones to end up in the maternity ward. He couldn't possibly know what to expect.

He was reasonably confident they were heading down the right corridor towards the right ward, because he could see up ahead a tangle of nursing and medical staff gathered outside one of the rooms. They were either standing alert, trying to hear through the cracks in the door, or else muttering among themselves in low, gossipy tones.

"So much for confidential," Tenzou said loudly as they approached, causing most of the personnel to scatter guiltily.

"What's going on?" Naruto demanded, trying to move forward, but Tenzou held an arm out to keep him back.

"How is she?" he asked the most senior looking medic-nin dithering by the door.

"We can't say right now," she replied hesitantly. "The child was taken away a while ago, but they're still working on her. It looks serious..."

"Was it... did it survive?" he whispered.

To which the medic could only shrug helplessly. "I saw it... but it wasn't breathing when they took it to the intensive care unit."

"What?" Naruto shook his head, confused. "What child? Look – what's happened to Sakura?"

Almost as soon as he said it there came a horrific, strangled scream from within the hospital room. Tenzou tried to make a grab for Naruto's neck as the younger man ducked under his arm, but his fingers closed on thin air – Naruto was already slamming his shoulder against the door, bursting through it while shouting Sakura's name. He felt a familiar swooping sensation. It was the one he felt before he was either fired, demoted, or flayed alive.

Indeed, Tsunade looked murderous, though she barely glanced up from her work. "OUT!" she hissed between her teeth. Naruto didn't seem to hear her.

A frighteningly pale Sakura lay immobilised on the bed, her mouth moving slightly, but no words were coming out. Tenzou wished he hadn't tried to follow Naruto inside. A pool of blood was spreading under the table, large enough that most of the staff seemed to have stepped in it, trailing sticky red footprints all around the bed and the room. If Tsunade noticed she was standing right in the middle of it, she didn't let on. She was preoccupied with pumping chakra into Sakura's abdomen.

Naruto stared in shock. "Is she... is she ok?"

Ino looked up at them both. "You'd better go," she said quietly. "Tsunade-sama needs to concentrate."

"No – I'm staying right here!" he protested.

"Wait outside, Naruto, _please,"_ Tsunade said firmly.

"Naruto," Tenzou murmured warningly, pulling on his sleeve. "Come on."

"But-"

"She'll be ok, as long as Tsunade-sama isn't interrupted," he told him pointedly.

Gradually Naruto began to ease reluctantly around and allowed Tenzou to usher him from the hospital room, back into the corridor outside that had been evacuated quickly of nosy staff at the sound of Tsunade's shout. There he found a row of chairs against the corridor wall, normally reserved for anxious family members or expecting fathers, and he guided Naruto to sit down on one before his legs failed. He eyed the other empty chairs grimly, thinking that, by rights, Kakashi should have been occupying one of them too, looking just as white and shocked as Naruto did.

"I don't understand," the boy said, staring at the door to Sakura's room. "She was on that mission to the rain country... did something go wrong? The message said something about one of the spies being uncovered... was Sakura involved? Did the spy hurt her?"

He was going to find out one way or another, Tenzou thought miserably, as he lowered himself wearily into the chair next to Naruto's. He took a few moments to judge how best to broach the subject, before taking a deep breath and leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.

"I don't think the spy hurt her," he said heavily.

"Then what the hell's happened?" Naruto demanded. "Why is Sakura in there, bleeding half to death, and I'm sitting out here after being called back specifically to see her?"

"You need to understand what's happened to Sakura before you see her. Tsunade doesn't want to cause Sakura any unnecessary distress-"

"I wouldn't cause her distress!" Naruto argued.

Tenzou refrained from pointing out that he very well might if he got as angry as Tenzou suspected he would once he was fully informed about what had happened to Sakura and who this 'spy' was. Naruto had never been known for his mellow temper, so he decided to take it slowly and gently.

"Her mission went a bit... awry, and she was injured in the retrieval, Naruto. It wouldn't normally be a problem, but because she was pregnant it got a bit complicated. Don't worry though, Tsunade's the best healer in the five nations so there's no way-"

"What did you say?"

"Sorry?"

Naruto stared at him intently. "Don't be stupid, she's not pregnant."

He was hoping Naruto wouldn't notice he'd slipped that in. "Actually... she is," Tenzou said tentatively. "Or at least she was. She had the baby tonight. That's why she's in there, Naruto. The surgery didn't go smoothly."

Despite being so pale that the dark whisker marks on his cheeks stood out more vividly than ever before, Naruto found the energy to give a hollow laugh. "Oh yeah? Then where's the baby?"

"You heard them when we arrived. They said the child was taken down to the intensive care unit," Tenzou told him carefully.

"The child...? You mean... the one they said wasn't breathing?" Naruto asked, all trace of forced humour wiped from his face.

Tenzou nodded slightly and watched as Naruto sat back in his chair and began to stare at the opposite wall of the corridor. He didn't move much after that, and Tenzou felt little desire to break through his shock and into his thoughts, so he sat and said nothing as well. He hadn't even gotten to the worst part yet...

After what seemed like an age, Naruto seemed to take a deep breath, as if it was the first he'd taken since he'd last spoken. "I didn't even know she had a boyfriend," he said thickly, more to himself than Tenzou.

"I don't think she does," Tenzou said softly.

Naruto frowned at the wall. "Then how....?"

"Uh..." Tenzou coughed uncomfortably. "The usual way, I think."

"No, I mean _who_-"

Right then Tenzou was spared by an act of God as the door to Sakura's room creaked open and Tsunade stepped out, streaks of blood marring her clothes. Ino followed close behind her, shutting the door quietly after.

The Hokage fixed her no-nonsense look straight on Naruto who'd half leapt out of his seat at the sight of her. "We fixed the bleeding," she said, without any sign of relief. "She's lost a lot of blood so she's not out of the woods yet. The blood replenishing solution should start to take an effect soon, hopefully, and we'll move her to a recovery ward. You'll be allowed to sit with her then."

Naruto visibly deflated. "She's going to be alright?"

"I think so," Tsunade gave him a small, reassuring smile. "Sakura's been through worse."

"And what about her baby?" Naruto asked, and the way he asked held a hint of accusation that none of them could miss. After all, it was clear they'd known about her pregnancy long before he had learned of it tonight.

"I don't know yet. I'm on my way down there right now to find out."

"And what about _him?_ Where is he?" Naruto pressed on.

"Who?" Tsunade raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"The father – the one who did this to Sakura," Naruto said furiously. "Who is he and why isn't _he _with her?"

Here the Hokage glanced briefly at Ino and Tenzou, but Ino looked blank and Tenzou took care to frown as if the question puzzled him too. Tsunade's gaze lingered on him a moment, before returning to Naruto. "All that matters is that she has her friends with her now."

"And what about Kakashi-sensei?"

Tsunade didn't miss a beat. "What about him?"

"I thought he was supposed to be on this mission with Sakura. Did he know that she was pregnant? Did he come back with her too?" Naruto looked between the carefully empty faces around him. "Where is he?"

"He is... back in Konoha, yes," Tsunade said slowly. "You'll be able to see him later. For now, however, I want you to be there for Sakura. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Naruto said with a faint nod.

"Good. You can go to her now," she said, and without waiting to see if she changed her mind, Naruto flitted past her and into the hospital room where Sakura was recovering. Tsunade waited until the door swung shut again before looking at Ino. "I want you to go to the intelligence division and-"

"Hokage-sama, I was hoping I could look in on Sakura's baby too before I went?" Ino interrupted. "Sakura wanted me to."

Tsunade gave her a cool look. "Your duty is to assist Ibiki now. It's of the utmost importance that we start extracting information from Kakashi as soon as possible. You do appreciate that little detail, don't you, Ino?"

Ino held a slightly deadened expression as she bowed to her Hokage and shot Tenzou a small, furtive scowl. "Yes, Tsunade-sama, I'll do my best," she said flatly, before turning and stalking away, shedding her blood smeared apron as she went.

"Interrogators need to be calm and collected," Tsunade said quietly to Tenzou as they watch the girl leave. "She's shaken up enough seeing her friend like that; I don't want her walking into an interrogation session with a dead baby on her mind."

Tenzou turned to her sharply, startled. "Are you saying it's-"

"I'm not saying anything," she retorted irritably. "But if it is, then Ino is _not_ going to be the one to learn it. I'll deal with this myself, while _you_ should get started organising a new expedition to the rain country estate."

"Of course," he said uncomfortably. "But may I ask a question, Hokage-sama?"

She gave him an impatient glare that he took as permission.

"When are you going to tell Naruto about Kakashi?"

"As soon as I have a quiet moment to discuss it with him, though I dare say he'll find out sooner," she said shortly. "Now may I ask _you_ something, captain?"

"Uh..."

"Do you know who the father of Sakura's child is?"

"Uhh..." He didn't really know what to say. The revelation of Sakura's pregnancy and Kakashi's betrayal was something the Hokage would have to spend quite some time recovering from... he wasn't sure she'd survive the apoplectic fit she'd suffer if he told her now who the father was. It would be like launching a hundred barrels of lighter fuel onto an already raging bonfire. Perhaps it would be best to wait for the flames to simmer down before-

"If I find that you are hiding the identity of this man from me," Tsunade continued dangerously. "I'll have you demoted so fast your neck will break."

Tenzou wasn't sure how that would work, but he certainly took it seriously. "I... uh... yes."

She fixed him with a stare so severe he reckoned she could only have learned it by a stint in the interrogation squad during her younger days. Tenzou swallowed hard but was spared the possibility of breaking down and spilling his guts when the Hokage clicked her tongue loudly in annoyance and turned in a whirl of blonde hair and green haori. She stormed away, leaving Tenzou to contemplate all the many, various ways she could and probably would employ to break his neck.

* * *

Truth serum, in its most upfront form, was not a pleasant drug to experience. It was not the same as Sakura's carefully concocted anaesthetic that loosened the tongue as the unwitting received slowly fell asleep. This was the stuff Kakashi had himself poured down the throats of the unwilling – criminals, prisoners of war, hostages - a nauseating mix of depressants, stimulants, and poisons, designed to weaken the body and unhinge the mind in preparation for interrogation.

The room he'd been placed in was bright, unlike the dank little cell he'd once dropped his cousin Sable into before he'd killed her. This was one of the deepest rooms in the intelligence headquarters; large, circular and cold, with stone steps leading into a shallow basin in the middle of the room where two white posts stood. High up on the wall was a wide glass window, behind which guards and casual observers could watch the events inside the round white room from a safe, detached distance.

Kakashi supposed he should be honoured. This was where the most highest ranked detainees were brought, and where one of the former mizukages had once been tortured and interrogated in this room at the behest of the second Hokage. He himself had once brought an infamous rogue cloud-nin down here and strung him between the two wipe posts. Now he was the one who'd been force-fed drugs and frogmarched down into the basin of Room Fifty-Five. It was his hands that were now strangled with sharp plastic ties and suspended from the top of each post at a height that made it impossible to sit down. It was him whom Ibiki now paced before, watching him as if he was no different from any other scum that was brought crawling in front of him.

It was difficult to look back at him. The drugs in his system had made him so dizzy that if he watched Ibiki pacing back and forth he felt he might just throw up on him, but that was assuming he could even hold his head up. Right then Kakashi simply hung by his arms with his face pointing to the ground, weaker and more tired than he'd felt in a long time, and yet the stimulants raging around his brain made all sorts of strange and random thoughts and memories fire across his synapses. He was aware he was twitching and trembling like a lunatic, and when he spoke he stuttered.

At least Ibiki knew better than to think it was from fear.

"So your family has the Rokubi?" Ibiki repeated with thick incredulity. "The six-tailed beast fabled for being able to incinerate whole forests with a flap of its wings?"

"That's the o-one," Kakashi whispered. "Karasu has complete... control... of it. He could deploy it at any time. You have... have to make preparations to evacuate Konoha. Now."

"I find it strange that you're willing to divulge details your organisation's most powerful weapon, yet you won't tell me anything near as simple as how many of you there are, or where your safe houses are located, or the other Syndicate contacts present in Konoha-"

"I t-told you," Kakashi forced out. "I gave you their n-names."

"You gave me names of a baker who has been dead for five years, two ANBU recruits that don't exist, and two members of the administration office who have been in hospital for the last two months along with half of the other office workers on their floor after the _real_ Syndicate operatives blew it up. You're lying to me, Kakashi-san. I give you credit, that's not easy to do under drugs like these, but I wouldn't expect anything less from a man who was almost Hokage."

Kakashi leaned his face against his arm, shaking his head to try and clear it. "That's what Karasu told me... they were the names he gave me..."

"Then he lied too," Ibiki said flippantly. "Now tell me how many there are in your organisation. Tell me their names."

The answer was on the tip of his tongue, ready to waltz out of his mouth automatically if he wasn't careful. Kakashi swallowed it back with real effort. He didn't want Ibiki and the rest of Konoha's administration to learn there were exactly one hundred and twenty-six members of his clan, forty-two of whom comprised the upper house which oversaw most of the business of the Syndicate. Konoha wouldn't stop until they'd hunted down each and every last one of them, and not all of them were like Karasu. Half of them were just obeying his orders for the sake of obeying, and the younger ones couldn't know or understand what they were doing. Kakashi wouldn't hand them over to save his own neck.

"Still not saying, huh?" Ibiki crouched down before him to push his head back and peer into his rolling right eye. The left one was still safely covered with a wad of gauze and sealing tape. "I can't give you much more serum unless I want to give you permanent nerve damage."

He seemed to pause for a moment, as if really debating the merits of that plan.

"Hatake Kakashi..." he said quietly. "Look what you've become..."

Right then, two loud clangs echoed around the circular chamber and Kakashi lifted his head shakily to see the solid iron door screech and grind open. Shikamaru stood in the gap, looking in on them. His eyes moved inquisitively over Kakashi for a moment before landing on Ibiki. "She's here," he said simply.

"Ah, good," the head interrogator stood with a roll of his shoulders. "We always knew he'd be a tough nut to crack, so it's just as well."

Shikamaru stepped aside and in walked Ino who stared back at him in consternation.

Kakashi dropped his head, privately swearing under his breath.

"Get in his head and start digging," Ibiki ordered her. "I want to know the names and faces of everyone in that organisation, all the safe houses they've ever had, and what they're planning. Don't rest until you've broken him."

Ino nodded decisively and started towards him, hand outstretched.

* * *

A quiet sigh escaped Tsunade's lips as she looked down into the little plastic box beside her. Inside lay a tiny pink form nestled in white blankets, little tubes laced around it like wires.

"He hasn't cried once," said Shizune quietly. "We got him breathing on the ventilator, but there's no way of telling just yet if he'll have any lasting damage to his vision or hearing."

Slipping her hand into the box, Tsunade stroked her finger along the back of one soft little hand and felt little fingers automatically try to grasp back. It was hard not to smile, even if he was only one small wonder in a night that had been overwhelmed with disaster and tragedy so far.

"Will Sakura-san be ok, do you think? Everyone's worried about her..." Shizune said. Being so active around the hospital, most of the staff knew and liked her (or held a healthy fear of her). It was only natural for her co-workers to be nosy and concerned.

"I think so," Tsunade said. "Eventually. I'm more worried about her emotional state... and how she thinks she has the time and money to care for a baby."

"Can't the father help her?"

"Providing he owns up," she replied tightly. "I've been trying to find his identity for months now, and all I've learnt is that he may be someone from this village. I wondered for a while if it might have been Naruto, but that seems unlikely now going by his reaction."

The baby boy offered very few clues to his parentage. It had to be said that all babies looked surprisingly alike when they were new, and this one had eyes that were a deep, dark blue and the wispy beginnings of hair that tufted the top of his head was unremarkably pale. In the dimmed light of the neonatal intensive care unit, he looked blonde. He didn't look much like Sakura, but then he didn't look much like anyone else Tsunade knew either.

She looked up and saw Shizune watching the infant with an oddly tender expression for a woman who liked throwing poison needles at the first sign of trouble. "Stop it," Tsunade ordered at once.

"Stop what?" Shizune blinked innocently.

"Brooding. The last thing I need is my other assistant getting ideas," she grouched. "I feel old enough as it is just knowing I turned my back for a few months and Sakura – a mere child herself – became a mother. How can she be ready? I'm nearly sixty, and looking at babies still scares me."

"Everyone under forty is a 'mere child' in your eyes," Shizune pointed out, suppressing another smile as the tiny infant yawned and wiggled. "You have to admit they can be cute."

Tsunade gave another sigh. "His name's not cute at all," she murmured. "Enoki. Whose bright idea was that?"

"Isn't that the tree from a Naka poem? The Enoki and the Lonely Woman, or whatever?"

"I wouldn't have figured Sakura to be the type to go for such esoteric naming methods," Tsunade mused thoughtfully.

Shizune shrugged. "Maybe she wasn't the one who chose it?"

"Hm." Tsunade's hooded gaze ran over the infant, the closest little creation she would ever get to having a grandchild of her own. "We'll see," she said softly.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Interrogation of Hatake Kakashi_


	41. The Interrogation of Hatake Kakashi

* * *

**A/N: **I've just started on the last chapter, so I can tell you that HoC will end on chapter 45. I'm sort of glad, but kind of sad too. I've been writing this for so long and I've enjoyed every moment of it... well, most moments. XD But I'll be happy to see it finished and be free to move on to other things.

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Forty: The Interrogation of Hatake Kakashi

* * *

_The potential you'll be that you'll never see,_

_The promises you'll only make._

* * *

Walking through the mind of another could never be done the same way twice. Everyone's head was different, everyone's memories were unique to them alone, and each attempt presented differently. Sometimes being in someone else's mind was like walking through a house or a long corridor of many doors, behind which lay the person's thoughts and memories. Sometimes it felt as dull and tedious as rifling through a filing cabinet. The only consistent element to mind-reading was that memories were never stored chronologically, it was always a matter of happy memories being found in one place, sad memories in another, all grouped according to how they made the person feel.

Important memories – the ones that affected someone's life totally – were the easiest to find. Experiences that changed the physical pathways in the brain most dramatically always left the biggest impression behind, and they were the memories to which everything else was connected, making it difficult to navigate around them when all 'roads' led back to them.

But Kakashi's mind was not like that. His mind was not like a house, or a corridor, or a filing cabinet, or a system of roads. She should have guessed before entering his head that his was not like other people's. Trying to walk through his memories was like walking through a dense, claustrophobic maze that spanned metaphorical acres. She didn't have to walk through the tangle of confusing passages before she began to wonder who was truly in control in this place – her or Kakashi.

With her eyes firmly closed in concentration, she pressed the tips of her fingers harder against his skull, parting his hair. She felt an almost undetectable tremor beneath her hand, but that was normal considering how much chakra she had wrapped around his brain, stabbing more aggressively into it the longer he resisted.

"Your family," she said aloud, "Where do they come from? What are the names of the leaders?"

Asking questions as she probed was always an effective prompt if she wasn't sure where to look for the answer. The mind always conjured the right memories for her, whether the person wanted her to know them or not.

Kakashi, however, remained obstinate. As she asked her question she thought she saw a flicker of a memory opening up before her... then it was gone before she could understand what or whom she was seeing, and once again she was back in the quiet, empty passages of the labyrinth with no clue which path to choose to forcibly take what she was looking for.

She asked the question again and waited to see if his mind would slip up and reveal the answer again. Though there was no flash of a memory, she sensed she was going in the right direction. She moved through the dark tunnels, every fibre of her conscience certain that the memories she wanted – needed – were just ahead, almost in reach.

The landscape was changing. The labyrinth was getting wider, stalactites descended from above and stalagmites jutted up from below, and she was walking on top of a pool of inky black water. Ahead was a solid wall. Had she been led the wrong way after all? She looked closer at the wall and saw a small strip of paper plastered to its centre with the familiar squiggles of a seal marking it. As she watched, it tore away from the rock face, leaving a tiny bright hole that was quickly growing larger.

_Oh, not again! _She inwardly hissed to herself, angry for being tricked once more. She tried to back away down the tunnel, away from the 'memory' before her, but she couldn't move fast enough, and suddenly the tiny hole had become a great doorway, out of which blasted a terrible wave of heat and light and pure energy.

Ino pulled her hand back sharply with a grunt of frustration. Even when she opened her real eyes she saw sun spots dancing in the shape of two enormous eyes in her vision as she looked down at Kakashi in annoyance. "Stop showing me that or I'll get serious," she warned. "I can take your mind apart piece by piece if you don't start cooperating."

For having such a solid wall of defence in his mind, he didn't look like much right then, though Ino regarded him uneasily. This man had been her acquaintance and superior for many years, and she'd never really paid him much mind before. She'd assumed he was old – forty or fifty perhaps, based on the fact that he'd already seemed pretty damn old when she'd first met him around ten years ago, but the man before her by contrast seemed painfully young. His face was smooth and unlined, stubbly around the chin, and slightly red around the eyes, and he was either in his late twenties or early thirties.

It seemed to her impossible to think that the infamous Copy Ninja whose name was feared throughout the five nations was himself barely more than a kid. Without his mask he didn't have the grandeur and gravitas of the other legendary nin like the Hokage Tsunade, or the hermit Jiraiya. He was really just another young man, trembling and twitching before her under the affects of the drugs he'd been given to loosen his mind and make him more suggestible. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have made a difference.

A tap on the window made Ino pause and look up at the observation window. Behind the shaded glass she could see the Hokage beckoning silently, accompanied by Ibiki and a handful of masked ANBU agents.

All too gladly she drew away from Kakashi and said to him stiffly, "I'll be back shortly."

"Take your time," he rasped, barely audible.

She left him in the care of another ANBU guard and left the cell, her footsteps echoing around the cold narrow corridor as she made her way up the stairs to the observation room.

Tsunade was still standing by the window, looking down at Kakashi when Ino entered, and she didn't look up as she addressed her. "How much have you gotten out of him so far?"

"Not a lot, Hokage-sama," she said truthfully. "He's got everything pretty well guarded. Anything I've gotten out of him I've only gotten because he gave it up deliberately."

"And what has he given up?" Tsunade asked quietly.

"Not much, just..." Ino trailed her gaze towards Ibiki for a moment. "He keeps showing me of a great big fire bird with. Over and over again."

Ibiki looked incredulous. "You don't mean to tell me he was being truthful about the Rokubi?"

"I don't know," Ino said quickly. "He's got so much control it could very well be a fake memory, and I can't see the context anyway. Even if that is a real memory, there's nothing to say that it's recent or that his clan possesses the six-tailed beast. It might just mean he saw it in passing years ago during a confrontation with the Akatsuki or whatever."

"So you haven't got anything out of him," Tsunade said curtly.

"He knew my dad quite well," Ino muttered apologetically. "He seems pretty familiar with the way the jutsu works so he knows how to resist it."

"Then work harder."

"Tsunade-sama," Ino began, "I could do real damage to his brain if I push too hard."

"Would you be worrying if he was anyone else?" Tsunade shot back. "He's the most high-ranking member of the Syndicate we've caught, and he'll be treated accordingly."

Ino gave a heavy nod. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Get as much out of him as you can," Ibiki said, "Don't stop until you know what he's had for breakfast for the last ten years ago."

"And find out about Sakura," the Hokage added sharply. "He's spent the last few months with her and I want to know what the hell was going on. I want to know if he's the one responsible for her fall."

"I don't think that's true," said one of the ANBU agents who sounded suspiciously like Shikamaru. "He was bringing her to us in the forest. If he'd been the one to injure her, it's not logical that he would help her like that."

An uncomfortable silence filled the observation room. "Should I tell him Sakura's alright? That the baby's alive?" Ino asked.

Tsunade took her time answering. "No. He has no right to be reassured. Our only interest in him is getting answers."

Ino descended the stairs again with a scowl she was still wearing when she entered the interrogation chamber. Kakashi lifted his head and looked at her, though it seemed to take a lot of effort. "Back so soon?" he croaked. "Have they decided to take what I'm saying s-seriously or are they going to disregard my warning in favour of ploughing on through my head for triv... trivialities."

"You're making this unnecessarily difficult," she said tritely. "If you really want to help Konoha, stop acting so suspiciously and let me-"

"Browse my most p-private thoughts and memories at leisure?" he guessed. "No, thank you. I've given you all you need to know. I've told you the truth about what the Syndicate plans, and if you choose to ignore it then the deaths will be on your hands and I'll try not to say 'I told you s-so' when the village goes up in f-flames."

"The Syndicates plans are one thing, but we need to know everything about them if we're going to stand a chance, and I've been told to use as much force as necessary to get what we need out of you."

Kakashi's dark, hooded eye watched her bleakly. "Don't push it," he said quietly. "I've been going easy on you."

Ino scoffed.

"I can show you things," he went on, "that would make your hair curl."

"Oh yeah?" she said derisively, reaching out towards him. "I could do with a decent perm; let's see what you've got."

She sank her fingers through his hair and forced her chakra through the plates of his skull and deep into the crevasses of his brain. He choked in pain, his left arm twitching spasmodically as she crashed through his right hemisphere, and Ino took another deep breath before closing her eyes and taking the final plunge.

The labyrinth was gone. She'd ruthlessly demolished the twisting passages and barriers keeping her safely away from his memories and in its place she found his mind opened almost exactly like a book. She could feel the archive of his thoughts within reach, all she needed to do was turn the pages at will.

"Gotcha..." she murmured aloud, "Now let's see about this family of yours."

As she'd hoped, the prompt worked and the pages began to turn. Unwittingly, he was thinking about his family and without his mental guards up, any moment now she would start to see their names and faces and locations -

The images started to unravel, like reels of movie clips. For a moment, Ino was triumphant at her success... until it began to dawn on her exactly what she was seeing.

"URGH!" Ino threw herself away from Kakashi with a cry of mingled shock and disgust. "What the hell -?! You lunatic!"

Kakashi simply hung mutely.

The intercom to the observation room crackled, breaking the quietness around them. "What's going on?" she heard Ibiki ask.

"N-Nothing," Ino called back, suddenly quite embarrassed.

"Then get on with it!"

Ino looked back at Kakashi who had lifted his head to fix her with the most taunting expression a man in his position could summon. His eyebrow tilted up and seemed to say '_Well?'_ and Ino knew she couldn't take this lying down.

"I shouldn't be surprised," she muttered, too low for the microphones to pick up and relay her words to their observers. "Your nose was always in those books, it's no wonder your head is full of porn. But you've picked the wrong girl to play chicken with, Hatake Kakashi. If you think a little sex will fluster _me-"_

"I haven't even shown you my favourite parts-"

She gave a growl of annoyance and slapped her hand back down on his head. "Fine! Bring it on!"

* * *

Sakura first became aware of the weight pinning her arm down before anything else. She tried to move it experimentally, and wondered vaguely if she was still tied up on the hospital bed, but when she forced open her heavy eyes to look down, she realised she had a new form of restraint – one blond Kyuubi boy.

The moment her arm had stirred under his head, Naruto gave a sleepy murmur and sat up, blinking back at her in just as much confusion as she blinked at him. "Hey," he whispered, so very quietly.

Sakura tried to return the greeting, but her throat was so sore and dry she wondered if she'd swallowed a wad of cotton. When she began to cough, fresh, sensitive wounds tugged throughout her abdomen. "Ow..." she gasped.

"Take it easy," Naruto said hurriedly, grabbing a ready glass of water from her hospital bedside table. "You almost died."

Judging by how pale and shaken he looked, she felt inclined to believe him. Automatically she lifted a hand to the top of his head, patting him clumsily given how heavy her limbs felt. "I'm ok," she croaked like an old frog. "Where am I?"

"Th-the hospital," Naruto said quickly. "Don't you remember?"

Sakura clicked her tongue impatiently. "_Where_ in the hospital?" she reiterated, looking around. Through the windows she could see the shape of the administration office silhouetted against the dawn sky, and she knew they were on the east side of the building... and so she was certain this wasn't the maternity ward.

"We're somewhere in radiology," Naruto told her. "It was the only room they had free."

She scanned the room quickly, taking in x-ray machine packed away in the corner, and the green curtains screening off her bed from the doorway. It was clear they were alone. Sakura felt that isolation more sharply than anything else. Something wasn't right. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

She looked at him with growing apprehension. "My... my son? Is he...?"

"No, he's alive, Sakura! He's in this little pod thing downstairs. The old lady says he has to stay in there for a while because he's struggling to breathe – oh, no, don't worry, she says he's getting stronger all the time. He'll be out in no time."

Sakura struggled to sit up, and Naruto seemed torn between pushing her back down and helping to stuff pillows behind her back. She whispered a thank you after finding a more comfortable reclining position, watching him furtively from the corner of her eye. "You've seen him?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, giving an uncertain smile at his hands. "He looks like a pink marshmallow."

Given that this was one of Sakura's nicknames used when no one thought she was listening, she reckoned that was probably fitting. Like mother, like son. "He's alright then? No... extra legs or ears or anything?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah... ten fingers, ten toes... although, six of them are on the same hand."

Sakura slapped his arm with all the energy she could muster. "Not funny," she grumbled ruefully.

He grinned at her, but it seemed more subdued than the one she was used to. "How did you know it was a boy?" he asked her.

"A doctor told me," she said, thinking back to that unenthusiastic GP who'd simply gone missing after she'd left the estate. Another victim of Yui's? Or had it really been Karasu? She doubted she would ever find the answer now. "I've known for months."

Naruto looked down at his hands again. "I wish... someone had told me that you were pregnant _at all_," he said. "I was sent a message last night and told to come home because you were 'ill', and when I got here you'd already given birth, and you were crying and bleeding with these horrible marks on your face... and even though I've seen the baby and I've been sitting here all night thinking about it, it's hard to believe this is really happening."

"Naruto, I've had months to get used to the idea, and I'm still not sure I really believe it either," she whispered. "It doesn't feel real."

As soon as she said it, she knew why waking up in this room felt so empty and incomplete. When Kurenai had given birth she'd said that once her daughter was in her arms the rest of the world had just faded away into bliss. But here was Sakura, stiff and sore and alone, her body aching to hold a child that simply wasn't there.

"Wait – I didn't mean to upset you," Naruto said suddenly, noticing tears gathering in her eyes before she did.

"Ah, just hormones, I think," she said, quickly wiping away the moisture. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Naruto."

His smile was weak. He was still looking at his infernal hands. "I'm just glad you're ok. That you're both ok."

"You're not disappointed in me?" she whispered in dread. She couldn't bear to think that was the reason for his difficulty in meeting her eyes.

"No... I just... don't understand how this could have happened," he said glumly.

Sakura stared at him. "Um... we talked about this when Kurenai had a baby, remember? When a man and a woman really like each other, they-"

"No – I get that!" Naruto interrupted, red-faced. "I get the mechanics, I just don't get how you ever came to like anyone that much. I never noticed you having a boyfriend."

"I don't really want to talk about it," she whispered. The subject lay close to her heart and right now she was too physically and emotionally exhausted to have this conversation. Kakashi was locked up somewhere underneath Konoha, and when Sakura couldn't even hold her own son, what help could she be to _him_?

"Sorry... I know you've had a hard time," he said apologetically. "I heard you had to be recalled from your mission, so that sucks. Did you get to complete it? Or did Kakashi take over? Is that why he didn't come back with you?"

A slight frown settled on Sakura's face as she looked at him. "What are you talking about?" Was this some kind of joke?

Naruto seemed perfectly earnest in his questions. "Well, I just assumed... since I heard he was on the mission with you, but he can't have come back with you or he'd be here with us, wouldn't he?"

Oh, god. Oh, god. _Oh, god. _Sakura placed her hands over her face and rubbed her eyes. "No one's told you...?" she asked hollowly.

"Told me what?" He sounded uncertain now.

She had to tell him – he had a right to know. But the truth caught in her throat and the silence crept over them as if time in this room had slowed to a crawl, because she knew these were the last few moments Naruto would have of respecting their sensei.

"Kakashi was arrested, Naruto," she whispered into her hands.

"What?" he gasped. "By Ame?"

"By Konoha."

The other boy shot to his feet. "That's crazy!" he protested, "They haven't – they – what could Kakashi-sensei have _possibly_ done?"

The volume of his voice was a little too much on her sensitive senses, and she grimaced. "It's because of his family."

"He doesn't have a family," Naruto said defiantly.

"I didn't think so either, until I saw them. He doesn't talk about them much, but that becomes pretty understandable when you realise his clan is the group of mercenaries running the Syndicate."

"_What?"_ Naruto stared aghast at her. "But – but – so what? They can't have arrested him because he's related to some bad people! If that's an offence, they should have arrested Sasuke when he was eight!"

They probably should have anyway, she thought darkly, shaking her head slightly. "It might be the case that he's, uh... been helping them a little."

She couldn't quite look at Naruto as she said it, because she didn't want to see the same expression on his face that had been on hers when she'd learnt the truth. And she found herself putting Kakashi's crimes more lightly than he probably deserved. Blowing up Konoha's bridges and hiding the identities of a band of terrorists probably constituted more than just a 'little help'.

Naruto stepped away from the bed. "I don't believe you."

All she could do was shake her head and whisper, "I'm sorry." She felt responsible in a way – that it was _her _fault. If she'd never discovered the truth about Kakashi and his family, she wouldn't be sitting here, forced to tell her friend that his beloved mentor was a liar and a fraud.

And yet...

"He's still the man you know," she said, as Naruto began to turn from the bed. She could see he was about to rush off to confront Tsunade or Tenzou or anyone else who could confirm what she'd said. "Whatever they tell you he's done, please understand that he's always meant well! He's been tricked as much as we have. He's not... he's not a traitor."

He stared at her blankly for several seconds, as if unable to tell what she was saying, but then he turned away and disappeared behind the screen curtain around her bed. She heard the door slam and his footsteps rapidly pounding down the corridor until they faded from earshot. She didn't blame him. If someone had just baldly accused her immaculate sensei of nefarious crimes, she would probably have sprinted away to find answers too – although _she _would probably pause to punch their lights out first.

She wondered what he'd do when he got those answers, and what he might in fact do to Kakashi if he found him, but it seemed unimportant compared to the other things weighing on her mind. With Naruto gone, she looked around the room, feeling the isolation even more sharply. Should she press the call button for a nurse and ask for Tsunade, or Shizune, or anyone else that could properly explain what had happened or else just keep her company, but she knew they had to be rushed off their feet at a time like this. Half her friends would be away from the village, fighting on the front lines or embroiled in espionage, and the rest still had their important jobs to do around Konoha. Those duties didn't take a break just because she'd given birth. Duties, presumably, like interrogating Hatake Kakashi.

And yet Sakura could not simply lie here and do nothing.

With slow, stiff movements, Sakura gingerly slipped off her covers and lowered her feet to the floor. A tug on her arm drew her attention to the IV still plugged into her vein, and with a wince of effort she drew over the tall rail on wheels it was hook up to, and leant on it as she carefully stood. As a walking aid she discovered it was pretty useless. The wheels slipped and Sakura's legs folded under her weight like paper, utterly unable to hold her own weight. Her hip hit the ground and the fresh scar across her abdomen pulled and broke. Blood oozed through her crisp, clean hospital gown.

Sakura swore harshly to herself, pushing a chakra-charged hand against the opened wound to begin healing automatically, and it wasn't until the pain began to ease that she remembered this was the first time she'd been able to use her healing abilities in months. A small wave of relief shivered through her, almost overshadowing the anguish of finding herself unable to walk at a time when she _needed _to get up and go to her child.

It was as she sat on the floor, swearing quietly to herself that she heard the door swing open again and behind the curtain came the squeak of hospital approved plimsolls on the linoleum floor.

"Sakura?" she heard Shizune calling. "I just saw Naruto run past like he had a flea in his ear, I hope you weren't being grumpy with – whatareyoudoingon_thefloor?_"

She'd pulled back the curtain and stood gaping at Sakura before her wits caught up and she flew down to help scoop her back onto the bed. "You're a medic!" she admonished. "You know better than to throw yourself around after losing so much blood. Are you trying to get me into trouble with Tsunade-sama?"

"I wanted to see my son," Sakura said.

"Well, that can wait, can't it?" Shizune was having trouble lifting her back onto the bed, so she turned her head and shouted towards the door. "Tenzou-san! A little help, please!"

Almost instantly he appeared. "What happened?"

"Someone thought they could just skip off after a major surgery, that's all." Together, she and Tenzou formed a kind of seat with their hands and lifted Sakura back onto the bed whether she liked it or not. She let her feelings be known with an angry glare.

"I'll just use a wheelchair instead," she informed them.

"There aren't any free," Shizune explained. "It was difficult enough finding a bed for you, let alone a room."

Sakura looked from her to Tenzou. "Then you can carry me down to the nursery, can't you?"

Tenzou's mouth opened and shut again like a fish, and once again Shizune injected between them. "You're not _well_ yet, Sakura. You need to give yourself a chance to recover before throwing your body around."

"I don't want to throw my body around!" Sakura protested. "I want to see my baby! I need to hold him-"

"He's in an incubator and he has to stay in there until his lungs properly mature," Shizune said reasonably. "You can't hold him until then. Look, I understand how you feel, but…"

"You don't understand," Sakura said, shaking her head. "How could you possibly know what it's like to – to – to have a baby whipped away from you the moment its born and to be told you can't even see it? Shizune what's going on? This isn't hospital policy!"

Everything inside her was screaming for that child. Instinct told her to find it, hold it, feed it, love it, and she could feel the baby's absence as keenly as a hole in her chest. She understood the protocol for keeping struggling newborns in incubators, and for sick adults in bed, but she couldn't understand that they weren't going to make an exception.

Shizune wrung her hands. "Tsunade-sama… thinks it's best if you stay put for now, at least until we can properly evaluate your mental condition."

"My mental condition?" Sakura repeated disbelievingly. "I don't have a mental condition!"

"She seems a little concerned that you might have been… a little disorientated from your ordeal."

Before Sakura could demand to know what the hell that meant, Tenzou jumped in. "She thinks you were brainwashed."

"Oh, really?" she rounded on him. "No doubt because you told her so!"

"I just told her what you told me, and she came to the same concern," he said, though she could see he was sorry. "You're a smart girl, Sakura, you ought to know how this looks to us. You've been cut off from the village for months and you're protecting the man who did it; surely you can see the problem. If you were in our position you'd wonder the same."

"No – because I'd respect my own intelligence and I'd believe me when I say I don't care how bad it looks, Kakashi never meant any harm. Despite everything, he did his best to help and look after me when I was weakened. He's a good man."

Tenzou and Shizune shared a worried look, which was worse than if they'd just laughed in her face. "His actions have hurt the village," Shizune said quietly.

"He was tricked… he didn't mean to hurt Konoha, I'm sure."

"But you don't know that, do you?" said Tenzou pointedly, and Sakura struggled to come up with a response that didn't confirm his suspicions.

"Look," Shizune said, cutting in. "Ibiki wants to come around later and ask you some questions about what happened at the estate, what you learned about the Syndicate… things like that. We can tell him you're too tired though, if you like-"

"Ask away. I'm ready," Sakura said quickly. "I can tell him whatever he wants to know."

"Even about the Rokubi?" prompted Tenzou curiously.

"The what?" She frowned at him.

"Didn't Kakashi tell you? He seems to think that the syndicate is in possession of the six-tailed beast that he intends to unleash upon Konoha at any moment."

Sakura blinked at him, looked to the stoic faced Shizune for confirmation, before shrugging once more at Tenzou. "I don't know about any bijuu… but if that's what Kakashi thinks they have then he's probably right-"

"You trust him far too much," he interrupted. "You were there at the estate with him, so wouldn't he have shared this information with you there? He says there's a bijuu and without knowing anything else, you agree?"

"He wouldn't lie!" she snapped.

"Why not? He has lied to everyone! He lied to me and he lied to you!" Before he went on he glanced briefly at Shizune before carefully choosing his next words. "Last time he returned to the village, I think you should know, Sakura, that Kakashi was chasing women…"

Shizune looked confused, as if wondering how on earth this was relevant to anything, but Sakura's eyes widened a little. "What? What are you on about?"

"When you were pregnant and alone in the rain country," he went on more strongly. "Kakashi was here trying to get off with women. I was there. He asked me for a flower and took off to woo the nearest woman with it."

For a long time Sakura's mouth hung open, staring from one to the other before she suddenly remembered how to breathe. "What colour was the flower?"

"Red, I think," he said. "But does that matter?"

"Of course, it does! Don't you see?" Sakura said, smiling at the two fools in front of her. "That wasn't a love-token he was giving out, that was an order to assassinate the Hokage!"

For some reason, Tenzou and Shizune didn't return her smile.

* * *

It was getting to the point where Ino rather hoped she would never have to think of sex again. The depths of depravation to which Hatake Kakashi's mind could sink knew no bounds, and every attempt to push deeper into his head was met with another reel of delightfully explicit images – of bouncing, gyrating women mostly, naked and sweaty, and moaning like porn stars. Ino didn't know whether they _were_ actual memories of porno Kakashi had watched in the past or whether they were figments of his own imagination, and it made little difference either way. The images were vivid, pervasive, and hard to get around. As a mental defence, she'd never seen anything like it, and it was quite effective.

"You can't keep this up forever," she ground out, trying to find that crack in his guard that would allow her in. "I'll find it eventually. Show me your family."

Almost too swift to notice, the erotic content of his thoughts were bisected for a moment by the face of a laughing youth. She only saw his pale hair and dark eyes for a moment, but she knew his name as if the memory was her own. "Was that Karasu?" she asked recalling the mug shot pinned to the board in the war room. "You seem to be pretty close."

She grasped hold of that tiny thread of thought and pulled. To her satisfaction she felt the mental barrier tremble and weaken, and she knew she had to have made some headway when he groaned and jerked under her hands. Other images flickered before her, all of the same person.

A boy digging through the insides of a pachinko machine. An adult leaning on a rail, surrounded by crows. A youth crowding close with a sake bottle, laughing about vegetables. Smiling and coated to the elbows with blood. He was born in the cloud country, but that wasn't where the organisation was based. Another name… he had another name; a real one. The same one scrawled in immovable characters across Sakura's face.

Fumio. The leader of the Syndicate was Hatake Fumio. Shikamaru could cross-check this name with the database, and they were bound to find more information.

Suddenly Sakura's face swam before her mind's eye, but it wasn't as Ino had ever seen her. She realised she was seeing her friend as Kakashi saw her – shorter, sweeter, full of smiles. Sitting beside him in what smelled like a veterinarian's waiting room, patting his hand. Leaning over a library table towards him, whispering poetry with a giggle in her voice, yet it was only her cleavage that Ino could make out clearly in the memory.

That wasn't so unusual for a male mind, but she thought she felt a pang of embarrassment from her subject before the memories sharply withdrew, leaving her clutching at nothing.

"That's not… for you," he gasped out. "That's not even relevant."

"I think I'll decide what's relevant," Ino said, casting around for the memories he'd hidden from her. "For a start, I want to know what the hell happened that she arrived here in that condition."

As she said it, the protective grip he had over his memories loosened and one was permitted to slip free. She saw a lake, and felt his fear, and then there was Sakura at the bottom of a cliff.

"_What happened?"_

"_Y-Yui!" _Ino heard her choke out_. "She pushed me! Sh-she's the one who poisoned those people. She tried to kill me that bitch!"_

The memory faded sharply. That was all Kakashi would let her see, but it was enough. "She was pushed by another girl?" she said, a little incredulously, though the memory felt real enough. She wondered at the cold fear that had accompanied it and wondered why that didn't feel like the usual fear one teammate often felt for another. She had dived into enough minds to know when something didn't fit. Perhaps it was false after all…?

"Let's see what else you've been up to," she muttered, plunging on invasively.

Another shiver rolled through him as she tore another thread loose and latched on tenaciously. Images swam into focus.

She saw him standing across a table from a couple of serious-looking Iwa-nin, discussing tactics.

"_You're sure?"_

"_Absolutely. __The pass from waterfall is blocked. There's nothing but an ambush waiting for you there."_

She saw him planting explosive tags along the same fire country bridges that had been destroyed a few weeks ago. Heard the triumphant crows of younger cousins as fire and smoke billowed into the air.

"_Score! That was a big one."_

She saw him standing in an underground cell in this very building, facing down a dark-haired woman tied to a chair, breaking a cyanide pill in his palm.

"_You're filth, your mother was a whore, and your father was the biggest disgrace ever to be born into the clan! You'll rot in hell alone for how you've dragged our great name through the mud!"_

"_Be quiet now."_

Grabbing a small calico cat off a low wall in Konoha itself. Ino saw him pull a note from its collar and read it -_Syndicate mercenaries are currently at Zuru estate, S of Amegakure. They are Hatake Karasu & family. Sakura. – _and saw him squeeze the cat summon until it disappeared in a yowl of pain.

Ino almost started when the next memory began to unravel and she saw Sasuke's face. The boy, who Ino had never quite managed to shake from her affections, was on the ground beside a river and only barely conscious. Sasuke looked different from when Ino had last seen him many years ago… older, more angular , taller…

"_We're virtually on the same side, you and I, so as a gift from one ally to another, I'll let you go."_

She spent a little more time on this memory than the others out of a little selfish desire to know or see more of Sasuke. After Kakashi have revived him he'd simply left him, carrying an injured Sakura to a local hotel. She felt his deep, smouldering anger at the boy, and at Sakura for trying to fight him – the genuine concern was hard to miss. Was there a reason why Sakura had never mentioned meeting Sasuke to Ino? This incident could only have been a few months ago. Surely she _would_ have told Ino… unless Kakashi had done something to her memory to make her forget? Who knew, with his vast repertoire of jutsu, if he knew a way to manipulate the mind as well as Ino did?

She tried to follow the memory to see where it lead, and find out what had happened after Kakashi had carried Sakura away from the river and the demolished bridge… when all of a sudden the memory started to fade as she felt a resurge of Kakashi's will to keep her out.

"No," she heard him grind out. "You have no… right."

"What don't you want me to see, huh?" Ino smirked. "You might as well give it up, I'll get it either way."

This was a memory he was protecting from her more than any other. Really? What could be worse than conspiring with enemy Iwa nin, blowing up the bridges around the fire country, and setting loose a very wanted missing-nin with nary a slap on the wrist? Ino pushed harder at the mental barriers. She could feel them beginning to slip and crack under her pressure. Kakashi was physically trying to shake her hand off him, so she grabbed his head in both hands and held on tight.

With a pained cry, and a shuddering slump, his defences crumbled. Ino seized upon the memories opening up before her greedily, and found herself looking down, as if through Kakashi's eyes, as he lowered the cold, dripping wet girl down onto a makeshift bed on the floor of a grotty little hotel. She saw his thought-processes, as he judged her injury and the temperature of her skin, and watched his hands beginning peeling away her clothes. She felt his embarrassment, and a little self-loathing at stripping her… but also an inappropriate desire to look at her.

Was this what he was ashamed of? Ino nearly snorted in derision. Everyone knew he was perv, and that was the least of his worries right now.

The memory, as all memories did, jumped around a little. No one remembered every boring second of their life and they tended to skip dull, repetitive moments... so that it was more like watching a roughly edited clip show than an event happening in real-time, and by the looks of things this was one dull, repetitive memory. He was out in the hall, getting a can of shochu. He was back again, reading a dirty mag. She slipped through the memory with waning interest. Sakura healed and woke, cried a bit – if only she knew that Kakashi's attention at the time was focused more on her bare thighs than her remorse. But then something happened that nearly sent Ino reeling back into her own mind in shock.

Sakura kissed Kakashi.

No… no… there must have been a mistake. Kakashi was fibbing to her with his imagination again, because there was no way… but… she sensed no energy left in the man whose head she held. He had no will left to resist her invasion, and certainly not to invent detailed scenes like this to scare her out of his thoughts. She replayed the scene with a growing sense of dread. It wasn't just a kiss she was seeing, it was the beginning of something else – something huge.

Something… like one of those Important memories that changed the mind forever; a memory to which everything else after it was connected.

Ordinarily Ino left these kinds of memories alone. She was not interested in the love lives of the people brought before her for interrogation, but this was different. Rather than step back and move on, she seized the memory, desperately searching for some clue that it was a lie. Kakashi had totally given up… there was no resistance from as she scanned everything he had to offer, and saw glimpses of his hand between Sakura's legs, and saw Sakura's body try to curl around his touch as an expression of pure bliss tinged her cheeks pink. Ino really could have lived without seeing her friend like this. Could have lived without feeling Kakashi's lust and hearing his dirtiest thoughts about her. And yet she couldn't look away. Not until he pushed her down on the bed mat and began… began to…

Ino finally snatched back her hands and looked down at the top of Kakashi's head in shock mingling with disgust. "That was… her first time, wasn't it?" she whispered. "Her first time _eight_ months ago. It was _you_ she was so upset about."

Kakashi hung blankly on his knees, suspended as always by his wrists.

"This can't be happening," Ino moaned to herself. "Please, please, please…"

She wrapped her fingers around his limp head again and desperately scanned his memory. It was easy now. His memories lay open for her like reels, each ready to be perused on a whim. She looked for everything to do with Sakura, and found that an awful lot of Hatake Kakashi's head was occupied by this one person. This one face. They were the strongest, clearest memories of all.

A scene opened up, of running through a bamboo forest to catch up with her, golden light scattering everywhere. She was livid, and Ino could feel the pain associated with the memory as Sakura stood her ground and shouted. _"I know who you are! I know __what__ you are."_

"_Sakura, please understand."_

The scene faded into another of a dark library beside an open window. There was a bird shrieking noisily outside on the branch – it was _Ino_ herself, and Kakashi knew perfectly well. He threw a kunai and killed the bird she had possessed, and Sakura castigated in shock. But without explaining Ino's demise, he returned to berating her to get rid of it – get rid of the baby.

"_Would you be asking me to do this if it was your child?"_

"_That's irrelevant."_

"_No, it isn't. I'm asking you… would you be telling me to do this if it was yours?"_

"_Sakura…it's not mine."_

Ino wondered if the denial she felt was her own or Kakashi's. She didn't want to accept what Sakura was saying, and neither did Kakashi

"_It's not mine."_

"_Why are you so certain? Do you really think I would let Toshio touch me? With all the genjutsu I have, do you _really_think I even needed to do anything with that creep I didn't want to?"_

"_If you didn't sleep with Toshio…"_

"_I've not been with anyone since you," she said quietly._

Ino was perfectly aware she was swearing out loud now, and she could hear Ibiki's voice over the intercom, demanding to know what was going on. She paid no attention. The memories were still playing out for her, almost as if of their own free will.

She – _he – _was standing outside the ANBU headquarters. The rain was splattering on the ground and hammering down on the rooftops, and around Kakashi she could see the figures of other jonin; Genma, Shizune, and Raido.

"… _any girl who goes for Kakashi has either been lobotomized or needs to be. The earth will collide with the sun long before any of us three have kids." _

The scene was whipped away, replaced by a dirty little tavern she recognised. Tenzou was sitting opposite, sipping beer sadly.

"_Sakura's pregnant."_

"_I don't believe you."_

"_I'm not lying. She's pregnant. And fat."_

"_Is it… is it yours?"_

"_Yes. It seems that way." _

"_Oh, god… Oh, __god!"_

The next memory flashed into replace it so fast Ino was beginning to feel dizzy. Kakashi was walking down a street in what looked like Amegakure, a heavily pregnant Sakura at his side with her arm looped through his. He was happy and more content than she'd felt him in any other memory.

It slipped away to be replaced with a grandiose bedroom and an enormous, ornate bed, upon which Kakashi sat, tightly embracing Sakura as if they really were true lovers.

"_We'll see each other again."_

"_When? How many months? How many years? Is your son going to be ten before you see him, or fifteen? _What?_"_

Sakura was angry, but by contrast Ino sensed only calmness in Kakashi. _"Konoha comes before us. We have to think of our friends, and our colleagues, and all the villagers that trust in us to protect them. They have to come first, before we think of ourselves. You have to warn Konoha and I have to stop Karasu. That's how it has to be."_

And then they were kissing deeply, holding and touching each other so intimately that Ino withdrew sharply, for fear that she was going to witness the same thing all over again. That wasn't even an old memory. That had happened only within the last day or so.

With slackening fingers, she withdrew her chakra and stepped back. Kakashi wasn't unconscious or she wouldn't have been able to see his memories, but he certainly looked it. He hadn't moved or spoken for several minutes now. Like all prisoners, once his will and dignity had been stripped away, there wasn't much left.

She could hear a banging. Belatedly she looked up at the observation window and saw her boss, Ibiki, hammering on it with his fist and making furious gestures for her to come up. He must have been doing that for quite some time now to look that annoyed. Behind him she could see someone else in the room who possibly wasn't supposed to be there: Naruto, who was talking or shouting emphatically at the Hokage.

Feeling pretty damn shaken, she left Kakashi slumped between his two posts and exited the room, heading for the stairs again. She moved slowly, dreading what she would have to report. Tsunade was not one who always respected the _Don't Kill The Messenger_ protocol.

She moved so slowly in fact that halfway up the steps she heard someone thundering to catch up behind her. When she turned and saw Tenzou, she froze. As did he. In an instant she had recalled the memory inside Kakashi's head, one in which _months_ ago he had told this very man that he was the father of Sakura's child. This man had apparently not been very forthcoming with this information that the Hokage and many others including Ino herself had been desperately seeking.

"Why didn't you say?" she said quietly.

Tenzou looked confused. "Say what?"

"That Kakashi-sensei fathered the child," she hissed. "You should be done for treason yourself! I should make them string you up down there too, because you could have broken this to her ages ago and softened the blow, but now _I'll _have to do it. And Naruto's up there! I'm going to die!"

"Well…" he hedged awkwardly. "I only came to tell the Hokage that another squad has been dispatched to the Zuru estate, but since you're going up there, you can tell her for me. Bye now-"

"No!" She grabbed his vest. "I'm not doing this alone!"

And she hauled him the rest of the way up the stairs and pushed him into the room before her so he had no chance of escape. Hardly anyone noticed their entrance. Naruto had the floor.

"… a faithful jonin for twenty years and this is how you treat him?! You've gotta be kidding me! Kakashi wouldn't harm a fly if it was wearing a Konoha headband! How could you possibly believe that he's a traitor!"

"He's conspired with the enemy, Naruto, we have no choice," was Tsunade's prickly retort. She sounded terribly defensive. "If you were in my position you would have to do the same! No matter how well we thought we knew this man, we knew nothing! And no matter how much you personally liked him, we can't overlook what he's done. Tenzou!"

"Ma'am!" he bowed stiffly, looking like he was desperate to back out the door. "I'm come to report that I've organised and dispatched a new team. They'll be at the estate within three days, give or take, if they manage to cross the border undetected-"

"_Some_ good news at least," the Hokage said waspishly. She turned her sharp eyes on Ino before Naruto could form another outburst. "And what have you learned so far. Has he been consorting with Iwa?"

"Yes, but-"

"And has he committed any treasonous acts against Konoha?"

"He helped blow up the bridges, but-"

"And have you managed to identify other members of the Syndicate?"

"Yes, and-"

"And their other known bases?"

"A few, maybe."

"If we start capturing other members of this clan we might be able to use them as leverage. Children will be most useful."

"This is Kakashi-sensei we're talking about!" Naruto exploded. "Do you hear yourselves? There's no possible way he's done 'treasonous' things toward Konoha! None!"

"You don't understand!" Tsunade turned to him. "You've been away for months, you have no idea how hard it's been here! Because of things we _know_ he had a hand in! Because of information he gave us that we acted on to our detriment!"

"Sakura says Kakashi was unaware that information was wrong, although from what she's told us he may have also been behind your last assassination attempt," Tenzou interjected, earning a sharp glare from the Hokage. "She still seems to think it was unintentional on his behalf."

"Kakashi's had months to isolate and confuse her," she said. "Until we've interviewed her more thoroughly, we can't trust what she says."

"No! No way!" Naruto shouted. "Sakura-chan's more clear-minded than anyone I've ever met! No one can influence her to do anything she doesn't want to! Not even Ino can influence her – and she has a special jutsu to do just that!"

"It's true," said Ino. "Sakura's will is stronger than most people's. Whenever I've tried to get into her head, she forces me out in no time at all. And I've looked at Kakashi's memories and I honestly don't think that he's ever intended her harm. He's… he's very protective of her. And… I don't think he's lying. Not about Sakura. I don't think he's lying about the Rokubi either."

Ibiki stood up from the bench he had been quietly sitting against. "Then the syndicate really does possess the Rokubi?"

"You think he's telling the truth?" Tsunade asked her sharply. "Why are you so sure, Ino?"

"Because… his loyalty doesn't appear to be towards his clan at all. Not entirely to Konoha, either. It's always been to Sakura."

"What?" she scoffed.

"He's loyal to-"

"I heard you the first time, I just want to know what the hell that means."

Ino looked at Tenzou who was imperceptibly trying to shake his head at her, warning her to say nothing more. But it would come out eventually. Ino had barely survived keeping the secret of Sakura's pregnancy to herself. There was no way she could live knowing the truth that…

"Kakashi is Sakura's lover," she said in a rush, as Tenzou lowered his head into his hands. "The baby is theirs."

Utter, total silence held the observation room like an enchantment. It was broken only when Tsunade, who had gone spectacularly pale and thin-lipped whispered, "What?"

"I s-saw it," Ino stammered. "In his head, I saw everything." And more than she'd ever needed or wanted to see.

For a long time no one said anything. Tsunade turned with a sinking lurch towards the window, staring down at Kakashi's limp form thinking thoughts unknown to anyone but herself. Ibiki looked mildly surprised, but mostly confused. And Naruto…

"I'm going to kill him," said the boy quietly, staring into the distance, apparently forgetting everything he'd previously been shouting about faith, love, and friendship. "I'm going to kill him till he's dead."

* * *

"I love them when they're this age," cooed the nurse as she leaned over the little crib to pet a tiny nose. "Before they learn to talk and start asking you for money."

"Daisuke still looking for a job?" her fellow nurse asked, collecting blankets for washing.

The first nurse just laughed. "Why should he when his mother is his cash machine? Ahh… seems like only yesterday he was in one of these cots, dribbling down his chin. We'll see how he likes it when _I'm_ the one lying bed, dribbling and out of cash."

The other nurse chuckled, and leaned over to admire the baby her friend was swaddling. "Ah, he's a cute one."

"Haruno's boy," said the nurse.

"Haruno _Sakura?"_

"The one who works here, yes."

"I didn't realise she was married." The nurse peered at the sleeping child curiously.

"She isn't," said the other, and the two women gave each other very significant looks. "Disappeared for a few months and came back with this little gentleman. I heard it was a passionate love affair with a legendary rogue nin. They say his profile's in the bingo book."

"You don't say?" The nurse peered even more closely. "Which one, do you think?"

"I've got my money on the Red Piper from the Mist village," said the first nurse in a conspiratorially whisper. "Look at that red hair-"

"That's blonde."

"No, it's definitely ginger."

"Excuse me?" called a voice at the door behind them. Both nurses jumped, wondering if it was their supervisor once again checking to make sure they weren't cooing over newborns instead of what they were supposed to be doing: cleaning bedpans. They both relaxed at the sight of a uniformed jonin.

"Can we help you?" the first nurse asked cordially.

"I'm looking Haruno Sakura's child?"

"And you are?"

Her co-worker nudged her hard in the ribs looking alarmed. "Silly!" she said, gesturing to the white-haired masked man with his hitai-ate lowered over his right eye. "It's Hatake Kakashi, isn't it? I'm sure Sakura wouldn't mind her old sensei seeing her child."

"Oh," said the first nurse, and stepped aside to let the much taller man stand between them to look down at the very same infant they had been arguing over.

He seemed to smile. "He's very sweet. What's his name?"

"Haruno Enoki," she told him.

"The mushroom?" squeaked the second nurse incredulously.

"From the tree, I imagine," Hatake Kakashi interjected, still watching the infant with a gentle smile. "Perhaps from the poem? Hmm… well, it might not stick, anyway. What's the tube?"

"Oxygen," said the nurse. "Didn't they tell you? He's a little early so he needed a little extra help, but he's about ready to be taken off it. He's a strong one. And no trouble at all – hasn't cried once!"

"No lasting damage then?" he asked.

"Well, we wondered if he wasn't a little brain damaged at first, but his tests have been fine, and his eyesight and hearing are normal."

"Excellent," he said, his smile widening. "Really excellent."

* * *

Three floors up, Sakura reached up and scratched sleepily at the stinging tattoo on her face.

* * *

Next Chapter: _Insensible Ideas_


	42. Insensible Ideas

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Forty-One: Insensible Ideas

* * *

_Come speak to me,_

_Easy like sky on earth._

_We are going to do something,_

_If you come and tell me just how you feel._

* * *

Over the course of the night, the gossip in the hospital changed tone quite dramatically. Until that morning, Sakura had been quite used to nurses, medics and cleaners (and anyone else who could find an excuse to enter her room or happen to be standing in the corridor just outside her door whenever it was opened) peering at her curiously in a bewildered sort of way. Most people in the hospital knew her and were shocked, and in each and every confused face so far she'd seen the question hanging over their heads that they were all too polite to ask... just who on earth was the father? What kind of man had braved and evaded the wrath of the Hokage herself to slip one to her apprentice? A man who knew no fear or sense, that at least was certain.

But when Sakura woke up that morning to the sound of one of nurses bringing in her meagre breakfast – a tiny plastic cup of juice and a piece of cold toast – the question was gone. The nurse looked at her, not with curiosity and befuddlement, but with pity.

Sakura liked that expression even less than the constant nosing of before, and when another pair of nurses arrived an hour later to take away her tray and change her IV, she decided not to bother opening her eyes and feigned sleep instead.

"Poor thing, so tired," whispered one of the nurses to the other. "Can't be easy going through all this alone."

"Why isn't _he_ here?" the other whispered back.

"He's run away. That's what they're saying, isn't it? Well, we all heard the Hokage screaming her head off last night in her office... I'd have legged it too. Although Yokko reckons she saw him being led off by _ANBU _a few days ago out of the chunin training hall. _In handcuffs._ She's blind as a bat, mind, but it's funny how no one seems to know where he is right now."

"Yeah... but..." the second nurse sounded dubious. "If the Hokage only found out yesterday, why would they have arrested him days ago? And you can't _really_ arrest someone for something like that... besides, Ayame saw him visiting the nursery last night."

"I don't believe that. If that's true, why didn't he come up here to visit _her?"_

"Then maybe the rumour's not true," said the other nurse with a shrug. "Maybe he's not actually the one who..."

The other nurse shushed him then, apparently deciding this wasn't a good place to gossip after all. Silently they finished changing her IV and drew back the curtains, but as they slipped out the door, the woman began whispering to her subordinate again. "That guy's supposed to be a legendary pervert. Pretty sordid, if you ask me. It wouldn't surprise me if he really did seduce his student and abandon her, you know... the guy's probably got twelve kids in this village alone already..."

The door clicked shut behind them, and their voices faded into all the others who moved past her door in this crowded hospital wing. They wouldn't be the only ones talking about her. Her colleagues in the medic common room were probably whispering about it now, stopping whenever someone new came in, before inviting them too to join in the rumour-mongering. Right now there was probably an elderly couple sitting at their breakfast table two miles away, and the wife had just looked up from her newspaper to say to her husband, "_Did you know about Haruno Sakura and Hatake Kakashi...? Sordid. So sordid."_

The fear that had driven her away from the village in the first place had finally been realised.

Sakura pressed her hands over her ears and listening to the low thrum of her blood instead. It was easier than hearing the indistinct murmur of conversation in the corridor and in other rooms and even below her window, and wondering if any of the words she could quite catch were about her. About Kakashi. About their baby.

She only removed them when she heard the muffled thunk of the door shutting once more. Glancing over, she saw Tsunade easing into the chair beside the bed. For a woman who had apparently spent the night 'screaming her head off' she looked remarkably placid. She was even smiling, like she was trying to put Sakura at ease.

Sakura, however, sat stiff with terror and nerves. It was rather like being smiled at by a serial killer.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Sakura had always dreaded the day this conversation would take place, and although she'd had more than half a year, she still found herself ill prepared. One look at her shishou's fixed smile that did a poor job of hiding her pity and disappointment and Sakura knew there was no explanation on earth that could redeem her in Tsunade's eyes. Her heart lodged in her throat and she stared out the window instead.

"I would have helped you," Tsunade went on quietly, so terrifyingly calm and reasonable, "if you'd just told me."

"I didn't want you to worry," she mumbled, although the truth that she'd not wanted to disappoint her went unsaid.

"Oh, you're right. I was much better off you with you running away to a foreign country with a traitor, only to return just in time to birth a premature baby and nearly bleed to bloody death before my eyes. That was obviously kinder on my nerves than if you'd simply sat me down six months ago and told me the truth." The savage, biting sarcasm in her tone cut at Sakura.

She lowered her eyes to her lap. "I'm sorry, Shishou," she whispered.

"No, I'm sorry," Tsunade sighed, her voice suddenly lower and more gentle. "I know it can't have been easy for you. Don't think you're the first girl in this village to have skipped a period and panicked about it. It's not like I haven't been there."

Sakura looked tentatively up at her master. "Shishou?" If she didn't know any better, she'd say Tsunade was admitting something...

"I ran away to the grass country for a few weeks when I was seventeen. Forty-five years ago contraception was not something anyone talked about, and abortion was reprehensible... yet becoming a mother so young without a husband was worse. I didn't really feel I had a choice either."

It was odd how such an admission made Sakura feel marginally better. From the outset she'd felt always felt so alone... so uniquely _stupid_ to have gotten pregnant by her teacher and so ashamed at her carelessness. She wondered, if she could go back and do things over with what she knew now, she might have asked Tsunade for help.

Then again, if she could do things over at will she simply would have told Kakashi to wear a goddamn condom. But what was done was done and all Sakura could do now was pick up the pieces she'd left in her wake and try to make sense of them.

"I took the mission because... I thought getting an abortion out there would be more private. No one knew me in the rain country. But I wanted Kakashi's input before I went ahead, and so I waited and waited... but maybe I wasn't really waiting for him. Maybe I'd just been looking for an excuse not to do it," Sakura said quietly, fingers pulling at the loose threads of her blanket. "I think... because I loved him, I could never really bring myself to think of the baby as a mistake. Even when we went all the way to Ame to organise an adoption, I _knew_ it wasn't going to happen. I spent so long trying to convince myself that I was doing the right thing, and I just ended up right back where I started anyway, except now Kakashi's in prison, no one will let me see my own baby, and you think I'm nuts."

"You just confessed to loving Hatake Kakashi. How can you _not_ be nuts?" Tsunade said with a faint smile, which slowly faded as she reached out to tuck a stray pink lock behind Sakura's ear. "I wish you'd told me it was him."

"You would have killed him," Sakura pointed out in all seriousness. _If she hadn't already._

"And saved myself a lot of grief, yes," she sighed. "I trusted that man. If I'd known what he'd done to you, alarm bells might have started to ring a little earlier."

A scowl pinched Sakura's brow. "He didn't do anything to me I didn't want or whole-heartedly enjoy," Sakura said with dignity. "Well... ok, it could have been better, but that's not the point. He's always been a good man. Sort of. He may have lied, but I can understand why he did; people can't choose their family and he loves them as much as he loves this village. He _tried _to protect them from us, and us from them, and perhaps it was inevitable that he would fail, but everything he did over there was to try and keep the war from escalating. Yes, he blew up the damn bridges, but only because he knew Tenzou could repair them easily and the alternative was letting Karasu do something worse."

"That's what he may have told you," Tsunade said gently.

"It's the truth," Sakura insisted.

"And I'm sure he also told you that he didn't _intend_ to give the order to assassinate me?"

"Well... actually, he didn't tell me anything about that," Sakura said in consternation. "But Karasu was lying to him. I guess that he also didn't know what the red flower was when he-"

"You _guess?"_ Tsunade interrupted with an incredulous stare.

Sakura's teeth clicked together in annoyance. "See – you don't believe anything I say! You don't trust my judgement of him! How am I supposed to talk to you if you think everything I say is a lie to protect Kakashi?"

"It's not that I don't believe you," Tsunade began.

Sakura cut her off. "Do you want to know why Iwa withdrew from the conflict a few weeks ago? It wasn't because the Syndicate assassinated the Tsuchikage. It's because _we_ did. Me and Kakashi. We created a rift between Iwa and the Syndicate, and how many lives do you think were spared in those weeks? We could have ended the war completely if Karasu hadn't won over the new kage... which, to be honest, I wasn't expecting. He's pretty obnoxious, but maybe that was just with me."

She ran her fingers absently over her nose where his true name was marked permanently into her face. Every now and then the tattoo prickled like a mild sunburn. Even days after he'd made the mark, it still felt tender and raw...

"Don't worry about that," her shishou told her, forcing her hand down like she was nothing but a child scratching at her chicken pox spots. "I'm sure we'll find some jutsu to remove the mark, and if not... there's always make-up."

She was trying to change the subject. "You _don't_ believe me about Kakashi, do you?" she repeated glumly.

"I believe that you believe in him..." Tsunade replied tactfully. "And you may be right about him, but not about his allegiance. He has bigger priorities than the village it seems."

"Even though his family have a hold over him," Sakura began, "he's never prioritised them over the village-"

"Ino, in her excursions, would beg to differ," she said. "It seems his loyalty to the village _and _his family was overlooked on more than one occasion in favour of you."

"I..." Sakura gave a small shake of her head. "I don't know what that means."

"It means, he's been more committed to you than his duty to me, and I'm not saying that's a good thing so don't smile. We're at war. The last thing I needed was one of my best men forgetting his duty in order to attend to a pregnant girlfriend. As I'm sure you know a shinobi's first duty is always to his village, always before his family... even before his children and the mother of his children." Tsunade sat back in her chair, exhaling noisily. "What he's done can't be forgiven so easily, Sakura. He's done us a lot of harm... and lord help me, we're still acting on the information he's given us."

"You mean..."

"If the Rokubi is there at the estate, we're going to go in prepared. Tenzou is on his way to meet up with the team heading there right now as he's the only one who has any natural ability to control a bijuu and the village has been put on evacuation alert. Kakashi seems to think his clan won't attack as long as Naruto is here to protect the village, so the poor boy's been grounded and he's furious. I think he was rather enjoying the frontlines. And right now, more than ever, he's just itching to smash _someone's_ face in."

Sakura face a tiny sigh. "He's not speaking to me."

"Yes, well I don't think he knows what to say," Tsunade said. "He's angry, yes, but I don't think it's at you. More than anything I think he feels betrayed that neither of you felt the need to mention to him that you had that kind of relationship. He's always been very fond of you, Sakura. You can imagine what a shock it's been for him to come home to find you and Kakashi had a child while he was away without ever knowing you were together in the first place. Perhaps he feels Kakashi has taken advantage of you in some way."

"That's what _you_ think," Sakura pointed out dryly.

Tsunade sniffed. "I'm not convinced he didn't. I doubt he, say, drugged you and had his way with you, but he needs to check his charm sometimes."

Sakura, who actually _had_ drugged Kakashi and had her way with him, suddenly felt rather guilty. "I told you... what we did was stupid and naive, but it wasn't sordid."

"Hm," hummed Tsunade, as though she wasn't convinced. At least she was no longer arguing the point; Sakura was sick of being told she was brainwashed.

"Does this mean you've stopped interrogating him?" Sakura asked hopefully.

"For now," her shishou nodded. "We've extracted a lot of information and it's up to Ino and Ibiki to sort through the truth and fiction now."

Sakura winced. She knew exactly what information extractions involved down in the intelligence division – in fact, she'd had to treat more than one prisoner for shock and nerve-damage after being subjected to such invasive measures. She hoped Kakashi was alright. She wished she knew the exact words to say to convince everyone he was still worth their trust, but she also felt guilty that for the past few days she'd been confined to this bed, worrying about someone else instead.

"When can I see my son?" Sakura asked after a while.

She waited for Tsunade to make a faint sound of sympathetic exasperation and start going on about feeding tubes and ventilators and how he was too weak to be moved and she was too vulnerable to infection to be allowed about the hospital freely, what with so much sickness floating around. But those excuses were growing thin. Sakura felt stronger with every passing hour – a fine testament to Tsunade's healing abilities as well as her own.

"Enoki will be taken off oxygen completely this afternoon," Tsunade promised with a smile. "I think we can arrange to have him brought up to you at last."

A juddering sigh of relief escaped Sakura. She wasn't sure she would have been able to take another day without seeing her child. It had to be the most unnatural thing in the world, to be separated from your newborn baby. She knew nothing of children, but on a instinctual level she knew that until she held that child in her arms she wouldn't be able to relax, even if she the eventual reunion was something she feared as much as she yearned for it. What if Enoki didn't like her? What if she picked him up and he screamed to be handed back to one of the nurses? It wasn't like she'd had many warm, fuzzy feelings towards the baby during her pregnancy – and babies could tell things like that, couldn't they? What if it was too late to bond?

She'd been trying to ignore how her confidence plummeted with every hour they were kept apart. It didn't help that the damn tattoo on her face kept stinging. She rubbed it apprehensively. Back at the estate she'd come to learn that when the tattoo on her hip stung it meant Kakashi was close by, but it was impossible for Karasu to be here... wasn't it? This was the heart of Konoha. He'd be insane to show himself here, and since the tattoo had been hurting on and off for a few days without incident, she began to suspect that it was just a sign of how carelessly he'd applied the chakra tag to her face. Whatever the cause, it put her on edge, and combined with her anxiety about her baby and Kakashi's treatment at the hands of Ibiki, Sakura knew her nerves were more than a little frayed.

A movement outside the open window caught her eye. She looked across and stiffened. A crow was sitting in the tree of the memorial garden, preening its chest feathers with its beak.

"There's really no reason why you shouldn't get to see him," Tsunade continued regardless. "Ibiki seems satisfied with your... your... Sakura? Are you listening? What are you doing?"

Sakura had picked up a hard boiled sweet from her bedside table – one of the gifts the nurses had been unloading on her since she'd arrived – and with deadly accuracy she tossed it through the window. In the distance there was an undignified squawk and an explosion of feathers; a large black bird shot through the air and disappeared over the hospital roof.

Satisfied, Sakura relaxed against her pillows and looked back at a mystified Tsunade. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Uh... yes. As I was saying, Ibiki seems satisfied with your psychological evaluation," she said jarringly. "Um.. he seems to think you're probably free of any sudden... irrational and, um, violent outbursts... so..."

"So I can see my son," Sakura said, nodding with a smile. "I'm glad."

"Yeah..."

* * *

Time seemed to pass slowly when you couldn't sleep. The guards had lowered the plastic ropes attached to his wrists, stringing them to the base of the poles instead of the tops, allowing him to sink fully to the ground where he might be marginally more comfortable, but still sleep wouldn't come. The drugs were still rushing through his veins like electrical discharges, making him sick and weak while simultaneously wired, and frankly, it would be hard for _anyone_ to sleep after being violated so drastically. Few people could ever be prepared for the one true sanctum a human being had - the privacy of their own thoughts and memories – to be invaded and plundered. He felt like his brain had been hit by a brick. Even though he'd seen Ino do it a few times, and seen her father do it many more times, he'd never seriously contemplated being subjected to the same thing.

It wasn't pleasant.

As he lay there, enduring short trembling spasms in the aftermath, he felt like he was living through the worst hangover of his life – far worse than anything he'd suffered after a night with Tenzou. Every tiny sound was like nails on a blackboard. He heard the infinitesimal shift of the two ANBU guarding the door as they discreetly stretched their legs. The puff of their breath hitting the inside of their porcelain masks. Kakashi winced when he heard some far off door slam shut, and the proceeding footsteps that sounded like a drum being pounded next to his ear.

When the door to his own room screeched open, he winced and tried to cover his ears automatically, but as always the restraints on his wrist pulled tight, disabled him from reaching his own head.

"You're in a lot of trouble."

Kakashi didn't bother opening his eyes to acknowledge Ibiki's arrival before him. "I've noticed," he croaked. There was no satisfaction to be gained from acting defiant and immune to his treatment. He was miserable, and he didn't care who knew it.

"You're lucky the Hokage hasn't simply ordered your execution on the spot," Ibiki said. "But don't you agree this somewhat changes things now?"

"Not tangibly," said Kakashi. "I can't see what difference it makes other than people are now twice as angry at me as before."

"Can you blame them? You violated the virtue of the Hokage's apprentice."

"No concerns about _my_ virtue then?" he rasped.

"Perhaps if you _had_ any?"

Ibiki walked around him, as he often did, like he was observing an exotic, wild animal. Eventually he walked full circle and came to a stop before him, where he crouched slowly and placed something on the ground beside Kakashi's head. "The Hokage thought you should have this, to give you something to think about."

Kakashi forced open his eye with difficulty and looked listlessly down at the object inches from his nose. A little piece of paper? No... his vision began to clear a little as he struggled to rise and he began to realise what he was looking at was a Polaroid photograph of what appeared to be a bundle of blankets.

Suddenly his arm jerked against its restraint as he instinctively tried to reach out and grab the photo. Pain lanced through his shoulder and back, but he barely noticed. He was transfixed with the photograph - with the bundle of yellow blankets and the tiny, tiny little body wrapped inside them with all kinds of wires and tubes emerging from it. He'd never seen anything quite so small and vulnerable. It took his breath away.

"Five pounds," said Ibiki. "A bit of a runt, but then he was early. She's named him Enoki."

Enoki. He might have laughed. "My great uncle's name," he gasped out. "Same as the poem..."

"Oh, good. We were a little worried he was named because of his likeness to a mushroom..." Ibiki sighed, eyes raised heavenward. "Would this uncle be one of the Syndicate mercenaries at the Zuru estate?"

Kakashi was hardly listening. He was too enraptured with that one tiny, pale hand with long fingers. They'd be just like his own one day.

"He'll be down here with you soon, no doubt," Ibiki went on. "Along with the rest of that family of yours."

"Uncle Eno's a good man," he murmured, half to himself. "He'll know when to get out of there."

Ibiki stared down at him. "You have a child now," he said evenly. "If you value him or his mother, you'll start thinking long and hard about your future in this village. Do you want him to grow up knowing his father as nothing more than an imprisoned traitor? Or are you going to continue to squirm and aid our enemy? Tell me everything you know about the one called Karasu – his techniques, his disguises, his aliases. Anything. The team need to know how to fight him."

Kakashi smiled slightly for the first time in days. "He's got my ears."

Quite rightly, Ibiki didn't think he was talking about Karasu. "Nature's cruel like that," he grumbled, and turned towards the door. "Think _very_ hard, Kakashi. His life depends on you. The lives of the _whole_ village are depending on you."

The gush of air in the wake of the slamming door skittered the Polaroid across the floor and into the reach of Kakashi's left hand. He picked it up with weakly shaking fingers, bringing it as close as he could. For now he was simply content to have this much. Some of the tension that had been rising in him for every day he went without news of Sakura or the baby was lifted off his shoulders. They still burned with agony, but his heart was full. Bursting.

This was his son. This little fragile creature was his own, and even though the resemblance to a mushroom was rather striking and pretty unfortunate, Kakashi was amazed. He'd never prepared himself for this moment. The baby had always been to him a potential... a problem, an obstacle to work around, something that yet wasn't realised... something so unfathomable it was difficult for his mind to appreciate, like the true size of the universe.

And now there he was, a tangible human being with a name.

Something warm and wet ran down his cheek. Sweat, no doubt. Or, as Sakura would say, just hormones...

* * *

For the rest of the morning, Tsunade left Sakura in the care of Shizune, who was remarkably immune to the resentful looks Sakura kept shooting her. It wasn't that she disliked Shizune's company, only she knew that Tsunade had ordered her to sit with Sakura to prevent her doing something predictably stupid like sneaking out. The other woman took her job seriously, and sat placidly by the bedside, nose buried deep in someone else's medical file, emerging only occasionally to give Sakura a fixed smile and ask if she needed anything.

To which Sakura would always reply, "I need my son," in a pointed way.

"You'll see him later," Shizune replied. "Don't worry."

She rolled away from the other medic to lie on her side and face the window. It was settling into a grey wintry day out there, and a fine layer of drizzle had settled on the windows (but at least there were no longer any crows in sight). It was so unlike the rain country. She'd virtually forgotten the seasons back there where the climate only ever wavered between hot and slightly more hot. She was glad to see the back of the place, but now, in this bed, she was beginning to feel the chill. She pulled the blanket up to her chin with a sigh.

The only thing she could do now was be patient and focus on recovering. She'd see her son today. What happened after that was a bridge she would cross when she came to it.

The skin on her face began to prickle. Sakura distractedly reached up to scratch her nose, but the sting only grew worse. The tattoo had begun to hurt again.

Shizune unburied her nose. "Don't worry about the marks… I'm sure Tsunade knows plenty of ways to remove things like that," she said pleasantly, noticing her discomfort. "Need anything?"

"I'm fine," Sakura said grumpily, trying not to move her lips too much for fear of antagonising the sting. The ache was stronger than usual.

She lay there for several minutes, willing the pain away, hoping it was only her imagination. When the prickle only grew worse she finally rolled over to face Shizune. "Actually," she said, "I could do with something to eat."

"Oh, good," Shizune sounded pleased. "I can get you some fruit crumble from the cafeteria if you like."

Sakura nodded. The cafeteria was on the ground floor, which was just far enough away to give Sakura all the time she needed. The moment Shizune disappeared out the door, she counted to ten and then started to push the blankets off.

Screw waiting for them to bring the baby to her... she was going to see him herself and allay this damn anxiety once and for all.

Although she still gripped the side of the bed quite hard, she was pleased to find that this time her legs could hold her own weight. The pain in her abdomen had faded to a mild ache, perhaps weaker than the one in her face, and when she moved the stitches felt a little tight but secure enough not to tear. She took a few wobbly steps towards the door to pull off the pristine white dressing gown that was hanging from its hook and wrapped it tightly around herself.

No guards kept vigil over her room when she peeked out into the corridor. She wondered why she had expected any. Perhaps it was all those months at the estate being held captive one way or another, she'd come to expect the same from even Tsunade, especially after all that guff about her 'mental condition'. It seemed her Hokage wasn't so concerned about it that she'd assign protective guards at least, and Sakura gingerly made her way towards the elevator at the end of the corridor.

It was somewhat like an obstacle course. The hospital was so cramped and busy that there were patients in gurneys lining the edges of the hall. Some were ninja, wounded so badly in battle they'd been sent home from the field. The rest seemed to be mostly civilians, sick, but Sakura couldn't tell what was wrong as she passed their pallid, shivering bodies. She'd heard the water was being contaminated by spies, and antibiotics were low, but she hadn't quite realized the full extent of what that meant…

She stepped around the milling families and visitors, between cleaners and conversing medics. No one seemed to take any notice of her or try to stop her, perhaps because she was trying to inject as much purpose into her fragile limp as she could. She wanted to look as if she knew what she was doing. She knew perfectly well that patients wandering around the halls looking ill and lost attracted the attention of staff like flies to a rotting fish. If a curious nurse looked her way, Sakura made sure to look the other.

The maternity ward was on the fifth floor, and Sakura leaned against the shuddering wall of the large elevator as it descended, picking up so many gurneys, patients and medics along the way that Sakura was almost crushed against the back wall, and it seemed like with every passing floor the ache of the tattoo grew worse. It was turning into a full-blown headache. When the fifth floor arrived she had to politely fight her way to the front, and there in the corridor the ache was at its strongest.

She looked around, momentarily frozen with the kind of horrified certainty she only felt when she saw an kunai coming that she couldn't possibly avoid. Her son was on this floor…

And so was Hatake Karasu.

Walking faster, she began to push her way past anyone who got in her way, scanning each and every face around her as she hurried on towards the NICU. She almost pushed over a man on wobbly crutches but didn't pause to apologize and steady him.

Her covert plan to act discreet and blend in with the other patients was abandoned. A nurse turned around as she passed. "Haruno-san?" he called.

She ran on and flew around a corner before the nurse could grab her. And then she stopped.

Even though the corridor was as busy as every other, he stood out above everyone else, taller, more dangerous, and from the look of him he'd been waiting for her. Halfway down the corridor he smiled and lifted his arms slightly – Sakura's eyes jumped to the bundle of yellow blankets he was holding.

"No…" she whispered. "Give him back."

He began to turn, walking towards the open window at the far end of the hall.

"_No!_" Sakura screamed aloud, making virtually all heads swivel in her direction. No one gave a second thought to the tall white-haired man slipping away with a baby in his arms. Sakura began to run, and most people jumped out of her way this time, but she knew she wouldn't get to him before he reached that window. "Stop him! Stop him – he's got my baby!"

This seemed to stir them. Bemused eyes swivelled to Karasu, trying to figure out what was going on. A more proactive medic stepped up to block his path, hands held up. Karasu stopped. Sakura had almost caught up to him. She reached out a hand to grab the back of his green vest.

All she grabbed were feathers.

It was like a small, soundless explosion of white. In a second Karasu was gone. Enoki was gone. All that was left was a shrieking white crow that flapped its wings with great thunderous claps and soared towards the window. People ducked out of its way. And then it too had vanished through the gap into the dull, grey sky.

Sakura's knees gave out and she sank to the floor. She'd expended too much energy… and she really had no reason left to stand. She simply sat there, blinking in shock at the window, trying to understand what had just happened. Karasu had vanished with a baby. Why did it feel like she only had to turn around and walk into the nursery and her little Enoki would still be waiting there to meet her?

Hands plucked at her arms. People who knew her were calling her name in concerned tones. Shinobi were gathering at the window, searching for the crow as if this was the clue to finding the man and the child. But Sakura knew it was already too late. The ache in the tattoo had faded completely. Karasu wasn't in Konoha any longer.

And that was when Iwa attacked.

* * *

The dull popping sounds started around midday, he guessed. It was an odd time of day to let up fireworks, but perhaps he'd lost track of the time after all and it was actually late evening. Occasionally the walls seemed to vibrate after a particularly loud crash, and Kakashi felt the faint trembling vibrations of the concrete floor under his cheek.

Probably not fireworks, he thought dimly.

After one especially loud rumble of thunder, specks of white plaster began to detach from the ceiling and salted down around Kakashi. If he'd looked up he would have seen the chunin guards in the observation room look worriedly at one another before one of them left to find out what was going on. But it was only when there was a new flurry of movement in the room that he managed to turn his bloodshot eye away from the photograph in his hand . A jonin had charged into the observation room, startling the two remaining chunin sitting there. Through the glass he could make out the new man's lips moving.

"_Has he moved?" _he demanded, though Kakashi didn't necessarily hear the words.

One of the chunin looked at Kakashi in surprise. "_He hasn't moved in six hours._"

"_Are you sure?"_

"_We haven't taken our eyes off him until you came in. Why? What's going on up there?"_

"_The hospital says someone matching his description was involved in an incident just before Iwa launched a direct attack. They're fighting up there right now!"_

Another shuddering crash echoed through the floor.

"_How did they slip past our outposts undetected!"_

"_That's what the Hokage wants to know."_

The two chunin were now fully turned to the man in the doorway, half out of their seats in urgency, so Kakashi couldn't make out what they said next. However, he could take a guess, when the man seemed to duck his head and lower his voice – as if that would fool a lip-reader. _"A pretext, we think. A baby was taken…"_

Kakashi must have made a sound or moved unexpectedly because one of the cool white masks of the ANBU guards turned to him.

One of the chunin was shrugging in confusion, asking something else. The new arrival gestured through the window. "_Haruno's."_

Before all the men looked down at him, Kakashi rolled his head to stare up at the domed ceiling, thinking as fast as the drugs would allow.

It could only mean that one of his clan had been here, possibly even Karasu himself. They were so desperate to create that Jinchuuriki they'd even gone this far…? They could have taken any child out of that hospital or indeed _any_ hospital – stronger ones that weren't premature – yet they had chosen instead to single out Sakura's baby. His baby.

Since he'd been placed in this room he'd heard nothing until just a few hours ago. There had been no choice but to assume Sakura had survived alright or Tsunade would have been down to murder him by now, although whether she'd given birth or they'd managed to prevent it had been a question hanging over his head for some time, one he'd tried very hard not to think about as Ino licked a metaphorical finger and thumbed through the contents of his head. That was until Ibiki had given him this photo and for a few short hours his heart had been lifted.

Now happiness conspired against him again. If the child was gone it was no doubt taken by Karasu for his inhumane experiments, and he'd somehow persuaded Iwa to strike now of all times to stir up as much trouble and confusion so that even the Hokage would forget about him. Kakashi bit the inside of his lips to keep from crying out in anger. The sharp taste of blood filled his mouth.

An idea occurred to him in that moment, fully formed, like most of his ideas. He'd been willing to lie here docilely and devote himself to being a model, repentant prisoner, but that had only been under the condition that Sakura and Enoki were safe. If they thought they could keep him here when his own child was in danger… when the village was about to come down around their ears...

Kakashi bit deeply into his cheek and worried the wound. Blood not only filled his mouth but poured out of it. He coughed and spluttered. Flecks of red sprayed across his clothes and the pristine white floor. The two ANBU by the door now turned to stare at him.

"What's the matter?" one of them asked.

Kakashi chose not to answer, choosing instead to look as ill as possible. It wasn't hard. He'd been twitching and making small feeble sounds for the past several hours, and now with blood seeping from the corner of his mouth and from his nose (a trick he'd learned from many a youthful day of squirting milk through his nostrils) he looked downright alarming as he concentrated on lying as still as possible. His breathing levelled, but his pulse raced. When one of the ANBU came over to check it and peeled back his eyelid to look into his dilated eye, he seemed convinced.

"Call a medic," he said to his partner, who promptly disappeared through the heavy door.

Patiently, Kakashi waited, enduring the insistent questions from the ANBU. He figured it was best to feign some kind of comatose state. From countless forays in battle, he knew it was the quiet ones who were in more trouble than the ones flailing about, moaning impressively. One of the observers in the room above demanded to know what was going on, but he couldn't stay to wait for an answer. The jonin was beckoning they follow. Konoha needed all the man-power it could muster to fight off the Iwa forces.

The other ANBU returned eventually with a low-ranking medic, probably the only one he could find, who really put Kakashi's acting skills to the test when he leant over him and started prodding and probing. For the first time he was grateful for the drugs. The heart palpitations and the unfocused vision were very real, and the medic didn't even bother peering into Kakashi's mouth before declaring, "He needs to be sent to the hospital. His blood pressure is through the roof. If these drugs aren't removed from his system he might have heart failure."

"That's not acceptable," the ANBU who'd stayed with Kakashi said shortly. "The Hokage's orders are that Hatake's incarceration be kept secret. Half the village is in the hospital right now and he won't go unnoticed if we send him there to join them like this."

The medic sighed in annoyance. They were all the same these medics, letting pesky ethics and oaths get in the way of cold, logical decisions. This man probably cared less about preserving a village secret than getting a patient the right care, but while medics could override even ANBU in these decisions, he would not override the Hokage who was herself the highest ranking medic of all. "Fine," he said. "We'll transfer him to the detention centre. There are some… _rudimentary_ medical facilities there that might suffice. But I can't stay with him. I have orders to assist our fighters."

"Cut him down," the ANBU said to the other, who took out a kunai chopped away at the plastic ropes, the fibres of which were deceptively strong. One hand fell limply to Kakashi's side, followed by the next. He remained totally boneless as the medic and ANBU lifted him and began bearing his dead weight towards the door. Kakashi let his head loll back and his feet drag along the ground.

The heavy door eased open and the two ANBU and medic nin drew him outside into the deserted corridor. There should have been ANBU posted every ten metres along the corridor on a level like this where Iwa jonin and S-class rogues were held, but every rumbling crash and thud above made it plain that certain priorities had been rearranged for the moment. By contrast, in the upper levels there would swarms of intelligence officers running around like headless chickens at a time like this, and he knew that if he was going to act, it would have to be now.

The only warning his escorts had was the split second his muscles tensed before he moved. He ploughed sideways, throwing all his weight and strength into smashing the body of the ANBU beside him into the wall. The man grunted and gasped, and Kakashi ducked immediately to avoid being swiped by the second ANBU behind him. Still not expecting quite such nimbleness from a man who had spent hours looking like a decomposing slug, the ANBU wasn't prepared for Kakashi to kick his foot out and knock him off his legs.

Before the two men could recover, Kakashi reached up and tore the gauze patch off his eye. The sharingan whirled to life registering every movement so quickly that the two men stumbling back onto their feet seemed to be moving in slow motion. When they looked up at Kakashi they saw his eye.

They froze.

"Damn," said one.

"Mm," said the other.

Caught in the genjutsu, it was only a second or two before they swooned and keeled over backwards. It had to be this way. Kakashi wasn't sure he had the strength right now to fight them off physically, even though using the sharingan weakened him so much he was left gasping for breath.

His two primary concerns dealt with, he suddenly remembered there was a fourth presence in this corridor… mainly because the medic chose that moment to place a hand on his back and wrap a fist of chakra around his spine. Kakashi gasped and fell to his knees. He couldn't feel anything. Control over his body was no longer his own.

It was never wise to underestimate medic nin…

"That wasn't clever," the man said. "They'll bury you in security now, and they were beginning to trust you were being honest with them. I thought you were supposed to be smart, so why would you try to escape after turning yourself in so peacefully?"

Kakashi tried, but he couldn't turn his head. He couldn't catch the eye of the medic and send him to sleep like the other two. The only part of him that still worked was his mouth. "The… baby…" he whispered gutturally .

"Haruno-sans's son was taken in the confusion," the medic said quietly. "You heard?"

If he could have nodded his head, he would have. "So that's why…" the man said in understanding. "I heard them saying it was yours. It's true, isn't it? That's why you've suddenly decided to make a run for it. I know a man like you probably couldn't sit back while your child is in danger, but what can you hope to achieve? Everyone's busy fighting, and those that aren't are going to be more interested in capturing you than saving that baby. You're doing more harm than good."

"They don't understand," Kakashi croaked. "Only I know… where he is… what they're going to do. I need to get out of here… please. I'm the only one who can stop… Karasu."

The fingers of chakra around his spinal cord loosened. Sensation flooded back into his limbs like a warm rush of water, and very gingerly he stood and turned to face the medic. The man looked as if he knew he was going to be fired by the end of the day. "You better do it to me then," he said gruffly. "The same as you did to them, if you please. Nothing unpleasant."

Kakashi could only stare in amazement.

"I greatly respect Haruno-san. If there's even a chance you can help that baby… it's not like anyone else is going to do it."

"Thank you," Kakashi said softly, and let the sharingan draw the medic into its gaze once more, until there were three bodies neatly unconscious on the floor.

At once, Kakashi began stripping off the clothes of the ANBU agent whose frame most resembled his own and shed his plain prison garments. The shoes were the worst; hot and sticky with another man's sweaty feet, however, it wasn't the time for squeamishness. Togged up in ANBU fatigues, he finished off by tying the porcelain monkey mask over his face to complete the disguise, then set off up the dark, dank corridor to the stairwell at the end.

As he'd suspected, the upper levels were filled with chunin and special jonin , but no one looked twice at him as he passed through their midst, walking calmly and unhurriedly through the rushing chaos of shouted messages and deployment orders. He had little to worry about an alert going out of his escape. Even if they noticed he'd escaped, it would be a while before they could gather enough man-power to launch a search. Instead of heading towards the formal entrance where he risked crashing in one of the headless chickens who might recognize him – either by his hair or his smell – he headed up through the levels into the building above where windows looking out onto the rest of the village began to appear.

On the sixth floor he walked through an empty conference room and stepped through a couple of plate glass doors onto a balcony. There he stopped.

Plumes of smoke were rising from the third and fifth district. The administration offices seemed to be on fire. All over the rooftops he could see the darting colours of green and white vests of Konoha's fighters... and the dull dusty beige of Iwa invaders. A long wailing siren was echoing down from the Hokage monument, warning civilians to take shelter, and from his position on the balcony he could make out streams of people running through the streets towards the underground bunkers.

Another nearby explosion rattled every window of the intelligence headquarters, and Kakashi grasped onto the rail for support.

His home was under attack. Every instinct he possessed ordered him to join the fight and push back the invading force. The more rational part of his brain reminded him that Konoha had a fleet of jonin and ANBU ready to defend it, and his son had no one. This invasion, whether Iwa knew it or not, was nothing but a decoy. Karasu must have promised to back them up with the bijuu or else Iwa never would have had the guts to launch a direct assault like this, and it would only be a matter of time before they were beaten back and forced to retreat when it became apparent that Karasu had failed to keep his end of the bargain. But by the time the dust had cleared, Karasu would be long gone, along with the bijuu, along with the boy...

Kakashi made his decision and dropped down onto the rooftop of the building below and put on a burst of speed, jumping from one platform of tiles and slates to another. An Iwa nin spotted him and changed direction, throwing a slew of kunai at him. Without pausing, Kakashi snatched one out of the air, smashed the others away before they hit him, and threw it back with all his might. It hit the Iwa nin square in the stomach, and still running with an expression of disbelief, he fell through a gap between two buildings. Kakashi ran on.

The hospital rose up above the other buildings, a great big grey slab underneath an equally grey sky. Kakashi dashed towards it and, once again, avoided the main entrance in favour of scaling the wall and ducking through an open window on the third floor. He apologised to the wounded nin lying in the room he'd entered who was probably too dosed up on drugs to care, and swiftly marched into the corridor to locate the nearest nurse station.

The hospital was busier than he'd anticipated, and the nurses at their station looked harassed and busy, struggling to keep up with a new flux of patients during what was already an overcrowding crisis. A whole queue of people stood before him, trying to make inquiries… Kakashi shoved past them all to wave his hand under the nearest nurse to drag her attention away from the form she was attempting to fill in at top speed.

"What?" she burst out, eyeing his trembling hand in annoyance.

"Which room is Haruno Sakura staying in?" he asked her.

She looked at him vaguely suspiciously. "Who are you?"

In all truthfulness, he had every right to visit her, being the father of her baby. Somehow he doubted the truth would go down awfully well at a time when it was apparently going around that someone of his description had made off with said baby. He settled instead for saying, "I'm a friend."

The wonderful thing about the ANBU uniform was that it commanded respect the moment it floated into sight. The nurse understood that agents were forbidden from revealing their identities to the public, and so she simply took his vague answer at face value, contrite to have even asked in the first place.

"Cedar wing, radiology, room sixteen," she said, after consulting her small white box of a computer. "But she may have been moved to make room for emergency patients"

"Thank you," he muttered, and sped away, following the signs to the cedar wing.

They must have been really short on space if a new mother had been carted off to the radiology department. He jogged through the corridors, past huddling families that flinched with every shuddering explosion outside, and counted the numbers on the doors while trying to avoid anyone in an ANBU mask or a jonin vest, but he needn't have bothered. Everyone was too busy. The moment he turned a corner, he knew exactly which room was Sakura's… it was the one outside which several rather irate people had gathered – several of whom he knew.

"-how could you let this happen?!" Naruto was shouting at the white mask of an ANBU. He was covered in building dust and streaks of blood, as if he'd spent most of the afternoon in the thick of the fighting. "You were supposed to be protecting her – what if she _hasn't_ wandered off?! What if she's been taken too?!"

Kakashi hung back, leaning against a wall at the end of the corridor. Naruto's voice carried well enough that he didn't have to get any closer than that. He couldn't hear the mumbled reply of the ANBU, but the answer seemed to enrage Naruto all the more.

"She's not senile! If she's gone it's because she's up to something, not because she's gone weird in the head! Split up and find her – she might still be in this hospital."

Kakashi ducked back around the corner as the group broke apart and began walking away. Two of the nurses passed by him, talking behind their hands.

"This'll be really embarrassing if she's only popped to the toilet…" one of them was saying.

"Yeah, but we better check the roof just to be sure..."

He waited until the coast was clear before he slipped back around the corner, heading towards Sakura's room. The others could run all over the hospital with their eyes peeled, but they didn't have his nose. Nor did they understand Sakura like he did, or even Naruto did. If her baby had been snatched, Sakura would not be able to remain confined. Like him, she'd made a break for it, and she would be making plans...

Well, fugitives ought to stick together.

He passed her room and immediately caught her scent, stronger and more metallic than usual. She wasn't well. He followed the trail into an elevator and had to ignore the looks of the other passengers as he bent and sniffed indiscreetly at the control panel. Her scent was strongest on the button for the ground floor, so that was where he went, wondering if she'd simply gotten up and walked out of this hospital. But where would she go? His immediate thought was that she might be heading home, but even if she _was_ suffering some kind of shock, she had to know that her home had been auctioned away. There was nowhere else to go.

But as he followed her trail, it led not to the entrance of the building, but deeper into its gut. He walked through a door marked '_Staff Only'_, where the corridors suddenly became quiet and empty. The ANBU uniform came in handy again. The few medic nin and nurses who passed him gave a small double-take but said nothing. They assumed he had a good reason to be there.

The trail ended at a room with a paper sign taped to it, labelling it 'Common Room – NO BOYS NO CIGARETTES'. He paused here because he could hear a soft voice inside. It sounded achingly like Sakura, but who was she talking to?

He hoped it wasn't herself…

Offering a quick knock of warning, he twisted the handle and pushed open the door. The pink-haired girl inside whipped around, arms out to shield something behind her. No recognition sparked in her dull, green eyes as she stared at him. "No men," she said warily. "Go away."

She was wearing her red vest, black shorts and the half-skirt he hadn't seen her wearing for what felt like a year. He'd gotten so used to seeing her waddling around carrying something that was roughly the size and weight of a cannonball beneath her clothes that for a moment he was thrown to see her without it. She wasn't the skinny, hard-edged athlete she'd been before; she was softened, curvier, and he might have paused to compliment her had she not looked so pale and red-eyed.

His worry got the better of him. "You shouldn't be wandering around," he scolded. "You've just had a baby, you're allowed to take it easy."

Even before he reached up to push the mask up, Sakura's eyes widened in shock. "Kakashi?!" she squeaked.

Any response he was about to make was cut off by the sound of a terrific throaty growl. Kakashi stepped back automatically into the unyielding door as a goddamn _tiger_ leapt out from behind Sakura and advanced on him. The enormous orange feline opened its mouth and roared, and he could have sworn that each of its dagger-sharp teeth was the size of a human finger, and each one spelled out his death.

"Dokko!" Sakura barked. "I told you! Kakashi is trustworthy."

Before his eyes the tiger shrank till he was no bigger than any other domestic ginger tom, and there he sat, still glowering at Kakashi unnervingly, flicking his tail tetchily. "I still think you're a fool," the cat grumbled to her.

Sakura ignored him, coming forward to put a hand on Kakashi's arm. "Are you alright?" she asked. Another little white cat that had been hiding behind her ankles ducked hastily under a bench to peek out at Kakashi timidly.

Quickly recovering from the shock of nearly being eaten alive in the female Medics common room, he gave her a bewildered frowned. "Am _I _alright? What about you?"

She ignored the pointed question. "You escaped," she said, rightly thinking they hadn't just let him walk out of the interrogation department in a curiously tight ANBU uniform.

"A little bit," he admitted. He didn't want to launch into a detailed explanation of what had happened to him since they'd been forced to part ways a few days ago. Likewise, she didn't feel the need to fill him in about her own ordeal, though he could see it had taken its toll on her. Right then they were just so relieved to see each other that when she leaned into him he gratefully wrapped his arms around her, marvelling at the fact that he _could_ wrap his arms around her at all. A small measure of peace diluted his blood. After last seeing her screaming in agony and bleeding heavily, he was finally reassured that she was safe and recovering. The fabled 'new mother' glow was completely absent, however. Rather, she looked as if she hadn't slept straight for a week.

As tempting as it was to take comfort in each other's presence, Sakura eventually drew back a little guiltily, as if she was ashamed to embrace him. Kakashi understood, even before she said it. "He took him, Kakashi," she said quietly, looking down at his chest. "Karasu took Enoki, right before my eyes. No one can do anything. They're too busy fighting Iwa and telling me to lie down. They... they've even recalled the ANBU team heading to the estate."

Just as he'd feared. He swallowed and tried to reach out to her again, but she stepped back and turned away. She'd had enough comforting from everyone else, no doubt. Now she was restless for action, and however happy she was to see him again, she had bigger worries on her mind.

"We'll get him back," he promised her.

"I know... I'm just..." She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. "You don't think he'll hurt our baby, do you? They want to make him heir of that estate, so they'll be keeping him safe, won't they?"

Kakashi couldn't speak for a moment. He didn't want to crush her small hope, but he had to tell her the truth. "It was a lie, Sakura," he said. "He never wanted the baby for the Zuru's money. He only ever wanted to use him as a new host for the Rokubi."

She stared at him as her cats peeped at her in confusion. "You mean," she said slowly, "Karasu intended to create another... jinchuuriki?"

He nodded, trying hard not to twitch too much during this tense moment.

"But... most of the babies who are used for things like that die..." she whispered.

"I'm sorry," he said, knowing in some way that this was his fault. If he'd investigated sooner... if he'd paid more attention to what Karasu was planning... thought more about his strange interest in Sakura's child... if he hadn't made the terrible assumption that the baby would be safe in the heart of Konoha... if he'd just _been_ there beside Sakura...

Sakura looked away, looking along the length of battered old lockers as if searching for some clue of what she was supposed to say or do now. The pudgy orange cat twined itself around her ankles, leaning against her shins to gain her attention, but she seemed oblivious. Her eyes moved to the open locker beside her, the one she had apparently fetched her clothes out of. Inside were a couple of books, a medic uniform, and a bag of assorted valuables, spare scrolls and weapons. Given that she had left this village a homeless woman, he wondered if this were her last few possessions in the world, and she seemed to look on at her belongings in disbelief. How was it she'd managed to save these pitiful things, but the most important thing of all – her own flesh and blood son – had been taken with hardly a fight.

Another explosion went off, shaking the room so hard Kakashi reckoned it had been a direct hit to the hospital. The florescent lights above their heads swung and the shadows spun.

"How much time do you think we have?" she asked after a while.

"I don't know," he mumbled. In truth, it might already have been too late. Karasu had set up his method of instant body-transfer long ago and could travel to Konoha and back in a matter of moments.

"My nekonin," she said suddenly in a voice that was trying valiantly to remain even, "is extremely fast and getting faster. She can get to the estate in a day, she says, and from there she can summon Dokko who can summon me. But I-I don't think I can take you with me."

"No taking," sang Nya from beneath the bench.

"Definitely not," said Dokko.

Ignoring the two cats who would refuse to take him even if they could, he addressed Sakura alone. "I think I know a faster way. We can be there within an hour, maybe."

She blinked at him in surprise. "How?"

"Karasu uses a body transfer jutsu to travel short distances, but he can travel any distance if he links up with a specific object beforehand - he uses a white crow mostly - and sends the object ahead to the place he wishes to go. When it's in place, he performs the transfer and he trades places with the bird. Once he's finished, he repeats the transfer, and he can visit the fire country and be back in the heart of the rain country in a matter of minutes," he told her.

"You've copied it, haven't you?" she whispered.

He nodded. "When we took the bridges, I saw him performing it on us," he said. "The only problem is that I haven't linked with a bird, so I have no object to orientate myself. I can't transfer directly to the estate. But-" he added as her face began to fall. "The transfer works over smaller distances too without a pre-made link. If there's a crow within five hundred miles of this place, I can command it and I can perform a transfer with it. It's about fifteen hundred miles to the estate, so..."

Her eyes widened. "So... you could make it in about three body transfers," she finished. "Is that safe?"

"Probably not," he admitted, shaking his head. "It'll take a lot of energy, but I'm willing to risk it. And this way you could come with me if you're up to it."

"Yes," she nodded hastily. "There's no way you're leaving me behind on this. Isn't that why you came to find me?"

"Yeah."

Sakura leaned in and held her hand to his cheek. "Thank you," she whispered. "You're the only one who doesn't think I should be lying quietly in bed at a time like this."

He touched her hand and turned his head slightly to kiss her palm. In truth, he _did_ think that, but he also knew the same went for him. Circumstances being what they were, however, neither of them could afford to sit back passively. It wasn't in his nature, and it certainly wasn't in hers.

The trembling in his hand must have given him away at that point. Sakura's eyes widened as she looked at him, as if only just seeing him clearly. "Jeez, Kakashi, what have they done to you?" she gasped. She reached behind him to lock the door and grabbed his hand, steering him over to the benches beneath the lockers. The little calico cat dived to the benches on the other side of the room to avoid him. "You're twitching like a junkie here... how many drugs did they use on you?"

"I lost count."

She winced and reached into her locker to draw out a bag. "I'm going to filter it out of you," she said. "We're not going anywhere until you're clean... I'll need to open a vein though."

He nodded as she removed a slim kunai that probably doubled as a scalpel quite often, and one old sock which she tied around his upper arm. With one quick professional nick with the knife, blood began pooling beneath his elbow, and Sakura held her hand over the wound to begin channelling her chakra.

She was, if he'd ever forgotten, brilliant. Half a year without her power and she didn't seem rusty at all. She stemmed the blood flowing out of the wound, keeping it moving through his arm, but slowly he could see something accumulating in the chakra between her hand and his arm; a tiny little dot of liquid that grew steadily larger.

As it expanded, the hot feeling in Kakashi's veins began to fade. The compulsive muscle ticks and twitches eased and by the time Sakura took her hand away a few minutes later, he was beginning to feel quite normal. The little ball of liquid fell to the ground with a splat. All in all, it had only been about a teaspoon of drugs.

He looked at the faint line where she'd opened him. "You're amazing," he breathed. "I'm always keeping one of you on hand wherever I go in future."

A tiny sound escaped her mouth as she hurriedly pressed a kiss to his mouth. He was bemused, but not unappreciative. "I can't wait anymore, Kakashi," she said with obvious impatience. "Take me."

There was that brick to the brain sensation again. "_What?"_ he gasped.

"To the estate," she said, bewildered at his confusion. "What did you – oh! _You pig!_ How could you be thinking of things like that at a time like this! I swear you are incorrigible! I've just had a baby - I wouldn't touch you with a bargepole right now, even if you paid me! I certainly wouldn't let _your _bargepole anywhere near me!"

"You're the one kissing me and moaning suggestive things in my ear-!"

"They're only suggestive to you, who can't haul his mind out of the gutter long enough to care that his baby son's been kidnapped by a psychopathic crime lord!"

The door handle rattled, and though it was locked they both froze, forgetting their argument in an instant. "Sakura!" a familiar voice shouted from the other side. "Are you in there?!"

"It's Naruto," she whispered, a little unnecessarily. Kakashi could tell that for himself.

"If he finds us, he won't let us leave," he whispered back with certainty. Even if the boy could be talked into letting them go, which was doubtful, it would waste valuable time. There would be other occasions to make amends to his blond student, explain himself and his relationship to Sakura, beg forgiveness and/or plead for his life, but it would have to wait. Now was not the time to stage the inevitably ugly confrontation.

"Start the transfer," Sakura said with a nod.

The door continued to rattle as Kakashi stood and steered them towards the empty space in the middle of the common room. The cats paced nervously around them while Kakashi began to form the hand seals and concentrated on casting a wide net of awareness into the far distance, looking for a link. There were crows in the fields just outside Konoha... another gang gathered around a deer corpse in the western woods... he kept heading north-west, reaching out in the direction of the rain country. He just needed to find two crows for himself and Sakura as close to the border as possible-

"Sakura! I know you're in there, I heard your voice!" The door bounced in its frame. "Why's the door locked?"

"Naruto, I'll talk to you later," she called back, trying to stall for time. "I'm fine."

"I've almost got it, I think," Kakashi said to her, nearly at the 500 mile limit.

The door handle stopped rattling instantly. "Who's in there with you?" Naruto demanded. "Is that... is that Kakashi-sensei?"

"Uh – no!" said Sakura, her voice suddenly going up.

"I'm coming in!" Naruto shouted, and barely a moment later there was an enormous crash as his shoulder hit the door and it came flying open. Bits of the lock were scattered everywhere.

"Dokko!" Sakura shouted.

Before Naruto could even step into the room, the ginger tom leapt forward, blocking the doorway with his rapidly growing form. He snapped, growled, and hissed, and Naruto was forced away from the terrific jaws of the monstrous animal. He looked at Dokko a moment in completely bewilderment, as like Kakashi he'd probably never seen Sakura's summon this way, but it only lasted a moment until he looked past the feline and fixed his gaze on the pair in the middle of the room.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, over Dokko's throaty growl.

"We're going to find Enoki," Sakura replied.

"You can't! It's too dangerous!" Naruto warned. He tried to start forward again, but Dokko reminded him of his formidable presence. "At least take me with you!"

"You have to stay and protect Konoha, Naruto," Sakura told him sadly.

Four hundred and fifty-two miles away, Kakashi found a pair of hooded crows roosting in a tree. "We're going," he said, wrapping his free arm tightly around Sakura's waist.

"Don't you go anywhere with him, Sakura!" Naruto shouted. "I'll never forgive you if-"

The rest of his sentence was whipped away, as Sakura felt a strong pulling sensation as if someone had jerked her backwards. She thought she felt, for the briefest of moments, like her entire body was covered in black and grey feathers, but the feeling quickly passing and then the solid ground beneath her feet was gone and she was falling out of a tree.

It would have been nice if Kakashi had warned her.

She managed to catch a branch with her hands before she hit the ground and hung there, wincing as every stitch in her abdomen pulled threateningly. None broke and she managed to hold on, but that was more than she could say for Kakashi, who slipped right out of the tree and landed on his back like a sack of potatoes.

"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, dropping down beside him quickly.

"Yeah," he wheezed, allowing her to help him sit up. "I just need a moment. That was... difficult."

She sat behind him, stroking his hair like he was a favourite pet while he attempted to catch his breath. "Did you see Naruto's face?" she whispered. "He looked ready to blow a fuse."

"This is a pretty stupid idea," he pointed out. "Sensible people would wait for back-up."

"I don't think I can be sensible right now," Sakura said quietly. One of her arms was loosely wrapped around his neck and she dropped her forehead against his shoulder. "We can't afford to wait... not if..."

She lapsed into wordless grief. Afraid she might have started to cry, Kakashi turned to draw her into his arms, and though he found her eyes were dry, she clung a little tightly. "It'll be alright," he said.

"It's not fair, Kakashi. I never even got to hold him," she breathed, twisting her fingers into his plain grey vest until her nails and knuckles turned white. "I didn't even get to _see_ him. I don't feel like a mother to anyone right now, but I'm still scared to death. I'm more scared than I've ever been in my life."

He wanted to say reassuring things, but that had never been his strongest point. The best he could do was tentatively stroke her hair like she'd stroked his, soothing her long, tangled locks as if that might sooth the soul inside her.

"Aren't you scared?" she asked quietly.

Examining his own feelings was down there with his ability to comfort. "I'm scared," he said eventually, because that was what she wanted him to say. In truth he wasn't scared, either because he was so accustomed to ignoring his fear to get on with his job, or because on some level... he still trusted Karasu. He could be cruel, but he was also clever. If he was going to try to create a jinchuuriki he could well be one of the few who succeeded. It was an alarming prospect in itself, but Kakashi still wondered if there was something else he'd missed – some other plan Karasu was still keeping close to his chest.

Sakura sat up slowly. As always, she was finely attuned to his dishonesty, a fact that could be awfully inconvenient at times, and right now she was looking at him with an old kind of wariness. She knew he wasn't scared. "Do you really care about Enoki?" she asked him intently.

"He's my son," he said, a little obviously.

"But do you really _feel_ like a father, right now?" she demanded. "When you haven't even seen your own child, how can you-"

"I have, Sakura."

She narrowed her eyes incredulously... but all her wariness faded when he reached into his vest and handed her the small Polaroid picture, warm from his body heat. Like him, she didn't seem to know what she was looking at for several moments, but when it finally dawned on her she gasped audibly and held a hand to her mouth. She stared at the picture greedily, as if it might come to life and show her more, and he watched as her chin wobbled and the corner of her lips quirked down.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

She sniffed. "He looks like a _mushroom_," she gasped miserably.

He laughed and pressed a kiss to her desolated forehead. "I think the picture's a little unflattering, Sakura, that's all. I'm sure he'll be perfectly handsome when he grows up, just like his daddy."

Oddly, this didn't appear to console her at all. "Great..."

Perhaps she would have stared at that picture all day if he hadn't firmly reached out and taken it back, replacing it inside his vest and letting her see that he kept it close to his heart. "Let's go find him, Sakura," she said, pulling her to her feet with him.

She nodded and stepped close. He wrapped his arm around her once more and prepared to make the second leap that would take them across the border and into the rain country, and one step closer to recovering their son.

* * *

Next chapter: _Blood of the Father_


	43. Blood of the Father

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Forty-Two: Blood of the Father

* * *

_Your voice is small and fading,_

_And you hide in here unknown,_

_And your mother loves your father,_

_'Cause she's got nowhere to go._

* * *

From atop the towering form of Gamabunta, Naruto could feel the chakra of everyone in the village. Little lives were winking out of existence from every corner, like disappearing stars, and though most appeared to belong to the Iwa invaders, he couldn't stop feeling intense regret that things had come to this at last. He felt Ino lying unconscious in one of the underground bunkers, but her mind was in the body of one of the Iwa commanders, taking great delight in misdirecting her troops. Tenzou was running hastily through the streets, cutting down enemies and desperately growing instant supports for teetering buildings on the verge of collapse – no one had told him to do this, he just probably felt this would save him a lot of grief later.

Over in the park he could feel Tsunade hurriedly patching up fallen nin, regardless of whether they were her own people or Iwa's, and over in the third district where the fighting was the heaviest, he could 'see' Chouji slamming his fists around, Tenten throwing everything in her considerable arsenal at the pressing enemy, Lee single-handedly scaring off the most enemies with his leotard alone, and was fighting near the Hyuuga compound with her cousin Neji and her numerous bodyguards. Then there were his own kage bunshin, all fifty-eight of them, fighting alongside everyone.

He also felt something else. "Over there," Naruto said suddenly, pointing towards the edge of the village.

The giant toad croaked a put-upon sigh and coiled his legs under him before soaring through the air, clearing half the village in one leap to land smack on a hastily formed contraption of a wood and metal. Iwa nin scatter and fled. The toad gave a soft grunt as the catapult crumbled to uncomfortable splinters beneath his backside.

"Tell me that was the last one," he complained.

The explosions, caused by the lumps of highly volatile clay hurled by the catapults across the village seemed to have finally stopped. "So, so," Naruto said, "But stick around. You're a pretty scary sight to the enemy."

"Look who's talking..."

Naruto was about to make a retort, but suddenly new knowledge and memories unloaded in his head. The kage bunshin that he'd created to guard Sakura in the hospital had dismissed itself, and he was stuck frozen for a moment while he tried to catch up with all it had seen and heard.

"I don't believe it..." he gasped. "She's gone and... Kakashi's taken her..."

Gamabunta's eyes crossed in an effort to focus on Naruto standing on his forehead. "Hrm?"

"They've gone to the rain country alone to get the baby," he said through gritted teeth. "_Alone. Dammit."_

His bunshin had been left behind with nothing but two cats and two confused looking birds. But at least in the predictable mayhem of claws and feathers that had ensued, he'd managed to secure a little... _insurance_ before the cats had disappeared.

Naruto wondered if he ought to act now... but at that moment, Gamabunta hopped aside and a wedge of explosive clay the size of a boulder whizzed past his head to slam into the perimeter wall some distance behind him. The matter of Sakura and Kakashi would, he lamented as he began summoning wind chakra to his fingertips, have to be dealt with later.

* * *

A soft crunch and a rustle signalled her final landing on even ground. Sakura put her hands out to prevent her fall and her fingers sank into straw. Around her a raucous, scolding cry rose up from a score of crows, none of them two pleased that two enormous apes had crashed into their quiet roost.

Looking around in consternation at the belligerent birds, Sakura noted the high wooden roof above her head and the narrow, slanting gap high up on the far wall that looked out onto a deserted courtyard. She recognised the place immediately; Kakashi had performed the transfer on two of the Syndicate's messenger birds, taking them right into the middle of the estate. For a feat of infiltration, it was pretty good.

"We're here." Kakashi was kneeling on the ground much like her, shaking with a little fatigue. "The mews."

"I know," she said, over the loud chorus. "We should move before this noise brings someone running."

Although the last thing Kakashi looked like he wanted to do was move, Sakura helped drag him to his feet and bundled him into the narrow corridor between the entrance and the roost. Once out of sight, the birds quieted, and Sakura leaned against the wall with Kakashi to listen intently for the tell-tale sign of running footsteps. It would do no good to come all this way and be caught in the first thirty seconds.

At last Kakashi took a deep breath and straightened, looking pale and waxy. "You ok?" he asked her.

She just rolled her eyes. If anyone's health was going to be problematic here, it was his. "You don't look so good," she pointed out.

"I'll be fine," he said dismissively. "But we should split up."

She hated when they said that. "Why? We'll be safer together."

"No, we won't," he rebuked. "We'll cover more ground separately, especially if we use our summons. You concentrate on finding Enoki. I'll find Karasu."

"You don't think Enoki will still be with him?"

Kakashi shrugged slightly. "I don't know... but if it comes down to it, Karasu is mine."

Sakura met his even gaze and wondered what that really meant. Had he finally resolved himself to taking his cousin's life, or was he just, yet again, protecting his cousin in case the opportunity to destroy him fell in _her_ hands instead? Karasu had put her through a lot of pain and humiliation, and for a moment she thought about telling Kakashi to go to hell because there was no way she was leaving Karasu to _anybody._

But then she thought of that tiny child in the yellow blankets and she knew it didn't matter. Between enacting revenge and finding her son, there was no choice. Enoki would always come first.

"Alright," she nodded.

"Search the private chambers upstairs, and I'll take the day rooms on the lower floors," he advised. "Can you tell where Karasu is?"

Sakura touched the mark on her face, but it wasn't like she had any power to activate it. "He's here," she said, judging by the mild sting. "But I couldn't say where."

"Don't worry about it. You should summon your cats."

"Right..." She put her hands together and formed the seals of the summoning jutsu – two cats burst to life at her feet.

"'bout time," said Dokko, though his words were muffled by half a black wing protruding from his mouth. Beside him, the smaller Nya was bouncing ecstatically, singing a song that sounded like "_Birdies in Nya's tummy~ Birdies in Nya's tummy_~! Yummy, yummy, yummy!"

"You killed the birds?" Sakura asked her cats in surprise.

"_I _did," said Dokko, giving Nya a disdainful sideways glance. "_This_ one couldn't catch a flea."

"That's why Dokko shares!"

"Someone has to or you'd starve, idiot," Dokko sighed.

"_Dokko burned his tail – Dokko burned his tail~_"

The end of Dokko's tail was looking a little patchy and black, but Sakura didn't care to look too closely. She was distracted by a new idea that had suddenly crept into her mind, and while she thoughtfully looked back in the direction of the domesticated crows, Kakashi hastily performed his own jutsu and Pakkun appeared behind the cats. "Oh, no," was the first thing the dog said, upon seeing the two twitching tails of his fellow summons.

"Feeling's mutual," Dokko said sniffily.

"Woof!" said Nya linguistically.

"Enough," Kakashi interjected, before any more fur could be ruffled. "We've got a job to do – Sakura, are you paying attention?"

Sakura snapped her eyes back on him guiltily. "Yes?"

"Keep your eyes peeled and your head down. If you find Enoki first, don't wait around for me. Get out of here."

"And what about you?" she asked uncertainly. "Do you plan to follow on after me...?"

He opened his mouth, closed it, smiled suddenly and said, "Yes."

And Sakura knew there was more to it than that. "Kakashi," she began slowly. "If you feel like disappearing afterwards... you know, I'll understand-"

"I already made my decision when they caught me, Sakura. I'm not running away from Konoha _or_ you," he said. "I'll go first, so you should wait a bit before you move out too."

She nodded.

"Good," he began to push away from the wall, only to find his sleeve snagged in Sakura's fingers. "What-"

She caught his face between his hands and pressed a sound kiss to his lips. When she pulled back she looked at him sternly, shaking his shoulders once for good measure. "Be careful," she warned, making it clear she would accept no reckless actions on his behalf.

He smiled lightly, touching her cheek with his fingertips. "And you," he said, and then he turned and stepped out into the empty courtyard, disappearing from sight with a small pug close on his heels.

With a sigh, Sakura slumped back against the wall and waited.

Dokko peered up at her curiously. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Search the upstairs rooms," she answered quietly. "That may be where they'll keep Enoki until they..."

Until they want to cut him open and stick a tailed beast inside him. Sakura sucked in a deep breath and shook her head; she couldn't fixate on the worst outcome here – that was the first lesson of being a shinobi. What the first lesson of being a mother was... that was anyone's guess.

"Let's go then," said the ginger cat.

"I have to do something first," Sakura whispered, oozing away from the wall and back into the mews. The moment the crows saw her creeping between their perches again they kicked up the predictable fuss, crowing and flapping they wings at her while clicking their beaks threateningly. Sakura paid no attention until she came to the opening at the end of the room where the birds came and went as they delivered their messages. They were, after all, the neural network of the syndicate; without these highly trained birds there was no way for Karasu and his subordinates to contact their agents.

With that in mind, Sakura very quietly pulled the shutter down over the opening, closing it firmly. Then she reached into the backpack on her shoulder and drew out a plain box of matches she normally used for cooking.

"What are you doing?" Dokko asked warily.

"I'm taking down the Syndicate's communication network," she said quite calmly, striking one match smoothly until it hissed to life.

"Didn't that guy just tell you to keep your head down?" the cat groaned. "I hate to agree with him, but sometimes he does speak _some_ sense, you know."

"He told me to keep my head down, not 'don't set fire to the mews', so..." She dropped the match into the straw, and watched the dry stalks curl and smoke, then gradually catch. "I choose to interpret that freely."

Nya watched in wonderment as Sakura dropped a few more matches for good measure and flickering orange shafts of flame began to rise up from the floor. The birds noticed too, and began hopping agitatedly on their perches, turning their scolding from Sakura to the fire instead. A few fluttered towards the perches closest to the opening in the wall, but Sakura had shut it tightly.

"Let's go," she said to her cats, backing out into the corridor outside to peek into the courtyard. "This place is all wood; it'll go up in minutes."

"Discretion isn't a word in your vocabulary is it?" Dokko bemoaned. "Now everyone will know you're here."

"Karasu already knows I'm here," Sakura snapped. "He's sensed me since the moment I arrived, and he's probably sent people to find me already. So let's keep ahead of them. Come on – stay close to me."

Seeing that the coast was clear, Sakura set off quickly around the edge of the courtyard and disappeared into the shrubs encircling the main house. There was a servant's entrance a little further on, one that lead down to the undercroft. Before entering she performed a Henge and adopted the form of a carefully average-looking scullery maid who was unlikely to draw attention.

But as she pressed through the labyrinth of the undercroft, the effort seemed almost entirely unnecessary. The place was empty. She passed through five deserted passages on her way past the roster board – which itself was wiped clean of all chores – and by the time she reached the servant's staircase leading to the upper floors, she knew something was very wrong in this estate.

The servants had disappeared, and an estate couldn't survive without its servants. What on earth had happened since she'd left?

It could make her task a lot easier, she thought, if she could search the house without running into any servants. She could worry about what had happened to them later – for now she had a baby to find, without a clue of where to begin looking. Where was Karasu likely to keep a kidnapped child?

Near the top of the servant staircase, Sakura stopped. She could hear voices, and she paused for a moment to hold her breath and listen. There were people moving around in the corridor outside. She could hear their footsteps approaching through the hidden doorway beside her. The cats froze at her ankles, Nya all but vibrated with excitement.

"...what does he expect us to do? Half the servants have left, and most of the maids have gone."

"We could always send for one from Ame?"

"It could be two days before one arrives. We should try rice gruel. My mother fed me on the stuff and I turned out ok."

"... we should definitely get a wet-nurse, asap."

Sakura twitched in surprise. They were talking about Enoki – they had to be! And now she had a whole new cause for anger... because how dare Karasu kidnap her baby boy and not even have arranged for means to feed him?

It was a good place to start looking. Sakura waited until she was sure those footsteps had faded away before silently sliding back the hidden doorway and stepping out onto the polished floorboards of the corridor outside. This was the nightingale wing, the branch of the house where the Zuru family slept and so naturally it was the most opulently decorated. Like everywhere else, it was also deserted.

"Keep your ears open," she whispered to Dokko and Nya, who immediately began listening intently for the approach of any unwelcome parties as Sakura went silently door to door, checking each room.

Toshio's chamber had clearly been empty for some while. The bed was stripped and his personal belongings had been removed, and Sakura felt a pang of remorse that he was dead, only because she would have liked nothing more than to come across him now, with chakra charged fists and no responsibility to behave herself. She shut the door with a snort and moved onto the twins room, which was just about as messy as Toshio's room was painfully bare and tidy. If the servants had left, there mustn't have been anyone to clean this bedroom for a couple of days at least, because Sakura had never seen it get so out of hand. She didn't even want to know what was smeared on the carpet over there.

She slipped on to Lady Zuru's personal chamber – the one she used when she'd had a fight with her husband, or when she had one of her 'headaches'. It was tranquil and relatively tidy, thought from a few of the clothes draped over chairs, it seemed she too had suffered for lack of servants.

"Someone's coming," Dokko hissed suddenly, and all three of them dove into Lady Zuru's empty bedroom and slipped the door shut behind them.

Sakura heard a bang that sounded very much like the doors of the master bedroom being thrown open. She heard a muffled, almost inaudible exchange –

"-definitely burning-"

"Keep watch, will you?"

Someone ran past the very door Sakura was hiding behind, and she retreated further into the room. _Keep watch over what? _she thought eagerly to herself. Was Enoki in the master bedroom? Was it possible that her son was only a few dozen metres away from where she was standing now?

Lady Zuru's private bedroom linked to the master bedroom through a side-chamber, and Sakura hurried towards it to press her ear to the connecting door. She heard no sound, though she knew someone was in there, guarding something.

"After three," she whispered to Dokko and Nya. "One... two..."

She slipped open the door, stepped through. At once two dark-haired figures inside started and turned towards her, reaching for their weapons.

Nya was fastest, shooting across the length of the chamber to scale the height of the first man and claw his face before he could even wrap his hand around the hilt of his sword. Dokko followed, roaring to life as a full-sized tiger to seize the arm of the second man and drag him to the ground.

Sakura was grateful. Her summons rarely assisted her in battle, their talents lying in other areas, but obviously today they felt she needed all the help she could get. So while the first Hatake was preoccupied with trying to tear Nya off his face, she smacked a chakra-laden palm to his solar plexus and watched him curl and swoon. The small cat leapt free just in time to avoid being crushed – and she was rapidly followed by a shrunken Dokko. The second man had thrown him off after his initial alarm. The tiger form was, after all, only an illusion.

"It's you!" he said, staring at her.

Sakura stared at him, perplexed. All these Hatake men looked the same in her opinion, but she wondered if he might have been the same man who had come to retrieve her at the doctor's cottage, shortly before Tenzou had captured him in vines and nearly strangled him to death. Well, his week wasn't going to get much better if Sakura had any say in the matter.

Rather than grace him with a verbal response, she slugged him in the face, half throwing him over Lord Zuru's impressively sized bed. He got to his feet on the other side, though he looked awfully dazed. "No way..." he mumbled, reaching for his sword and blinking rapidly.

She followed quickly, charging over the bed to kick the weapon out of his hand. Looking even more perplexed, he never saw the final blow coming that threw him against the wall and had him crumpling to a bony heap on the ground.

"Urgh..." Sakura abated, sitting down gingerly on the bed to clutch her stomach. "That hurt..."

After a few moments to press chakra into herself and ease her aching stitch, she looked at Dokko. "Is he here...?" she whispered.

"No," said the cat irritably, although this was probably because he was looking at Nya who had squatted over the chest of the first fallen man and was peeing in victory.

Sakura sighed and looked around the room with a slight frown. "What were they keeping watch over then?"

"That, most likely." Dokko twitched his whiskers in the direction of the person lying in the bed behind her. He'd been so still and Sakura had been so intent on fighting that she'd missed him entirely. She jumped to her feet in shock, and out of pure habit she bowed low and apologised profusely. "I'm so sorry – I..."

And then she stopped short, because Lord Zuru was not the least bit concerned that Sakura had crashed into his chamber, thrown around a couple of men, and smashed a wall and two bed posts in the process.

He was quite dead.

* * *

Nothing but the sound of his own steady footsteps. That was all Kakashi could hear as he stalked through the grand, empty corridors of the mansion. With the servants gone this place was little more than a hollow shell, and even some of its splendour had oozed away in their absence... not in least because the servants had walked off with it. Tapestries and paintings and priceless vases; the halls were practically barren.

Not even the tinkle of Pakkun's collar accompanied him since he'd sent the dog off to check out the lake and find out if he could pick up the scent of a child around there. Kakashi wasn't confident he would, otherwise he would have gone there himself, but something told him that Karasu wouldn't be rushing to take the baby to the Rokubi. His single-minded perusal of Sakura's child was personal, but it had never been about Sakura. Only Kakashi. That Karasu continued to go to such lengths to find and kidnap _this_ particular child left him in little doubt that his cousin not only anticipated Kakashi's arrival, but expected it.

Right now Karasu was waiting for him.

His familiarity with the house and Karasu himself was so great that he already knew where to go. It wasn't long before a shadow detached itself from the side of the corridor and dropped into step behind him, silently following. Then another. And another. No one spoke to him or tried to stop him. They all knew what the deal was, and they were merely escorts to show him the way. Kakashi didn't look back at any of the clan who accompanied him. He didn't stop until he reached the arching doorway of the Lord's reception room; the room where Lord Zuru, with his retainers and best swordsman, would hold meetings on the most formal of occasions. There was a gently raised alcove at one end where the lord of the estate would sit in a splendid stone chair, where he could look down on his rows of kneeling subjects and visiting allies. Kakashi remembered when he and Karasu used to kneel facing that alcove.

Now Karasu sat there, lounging casually in the most exalted position in the entire estate. Lord Zuru's retainers, swordsmen and staff were gone, and the only subjects gathered in this room were the clan, upper house members and branch members alike. They all looked mutely back at Kakashi in the archway as if they truly had been waiting for them, since none appeared surprised to see him.

Kakashi didn't know exactly what had happened in his absence, but it was safe to say that the Hatake clan had finally officialised their take-over. Lord Zuru had been deposed one way or another. He supposed there was no further point to that man's existence now that Karasu had his hands on a new 'heir' he could control totally.

"What took you?" Karasu asked, resting his forearm on his propped knee. "You've been missing the party."

Kakashi looked around and couldn't detect much of a festive atmosphere; in fact most of the faces around him were all carefully blank and expressionless. But he cared little what these people were thinking. He looked around only because he was half expecting to see someone in this room holding a baby. His baby.

He wasn't there.

"Where is he?" he asked quietly, and his voice carried perfectly through the noiseless room.

"Zuru?" Karasu deliberately misunderstood him. "He's currently... bedridden."

A few of the more sycophantic upper house members like Shushui sniggered at this.

"You mean he's dead," said Kakashi flatly.

"Mm."

"How convenient for you," Kakashi muttered. "You found that new heir just in time, huh?"

"It's about time you realise that people live their lives according to how convenient they are to me," Karasu said drolly, looking him up and down and taking in his ill-fitting fatigues. "Would you like to meet our new heir?"

_Enoki_.

Some intense expression must have come over his face because Karasu laughed and loudly called for Midori.

The door to an adjoining antechamber slid back and Reika's older sister revealed herself. Kakashi looked desperately at her arms, but she was carrying nothing. The only people with her were two dark-haired girls half her size, both holding each other's hand very tightly. The twins had always been such an irrepressible pair of delinquents. It was odd to see them looking so tense and scared. Their 'father' was dead, their mother appeared to have disappeared with the servants, and though they'd gotten along with the Hatake clan suspiciously well for years, they were clearly feeling out of their depth right now.

And as Kakashi looked at them, he finally understood.

He understood everything.

"By the laws of the land, of course, they're only heiresses," Karasu continued. "The next Lord will be whomever the eldest eventually marries, but we have many more rounds of rock-paper-scissors to go before we decide which one of them that is. Until then, I'm appointing myself as their guardian and thus the de facto ruler of this estate, and sole governor of the former lord's property and accounts. It's all mine now."

Kakashi dragged his eyes from the shrinking twin girls.

"It was always going to be them," he whispered. "You never had _any_ intention of using Sakura's child, did you? None at all."

"As you said yourself," said Karasu coolly. "Why would I deprive my own progeny? If Toshio hadn't gone and gotten himself murdered by an angry lover, it would only have been a matter of time before I got to him. The only ones who will inherit this estate will be _my_ girls."

"And Sakura's boy? You only ever wanted him to experiment on as a container for the bird monster, right?" Kakashi sneered. "That's what _you_ said, but that's been puzzling me. Any newborn would suit your needs. Why go to so much trouble waiting for that one? Why chase it down to a hospital in another country and pick it out of a ward filled with dozens of other babies who were healthier and stronger? Why trick Iwa into invading, knowing they'll be screaming for your blood when they realise you never intended to back them up. Why risk _me_ coming back for you?"

"So you're finally beginning to see now?" Karasu asked, smiling benevolently. "Ah – listen to that."

Kakashi did stop and listen, and everyone in the room heard the sound that made the heart in Kakashi's chest constrict almost painfully: the high, sobbing howl of a tiny, hungry baby. It seemed to echo all around him. There was no telling which direction of which room it was coming from, only that it was close.

Karasu stood up and stepped down from his exalted alcove. "Do you know what that is?" he asked.

Kakashi nearly blurted, _My son. That's my son!_

But Karasu's grin widened as he drew closer. "That is the sound of the trap snapping shut on you, Kakashi," he said. "Hold him."

Those nearest instantly seized Kakashi around the arms and neck. Instinctively he threw the first few away, but for every one he pushed, two more grabbed him, until he was swamped and his resistant form was wrestled onto his knees. He'd walked willingly into this place and now he was sorely outnumbered. He couldn't say that he hadn't expected something like this... but that didn't make it any less galling.

"Let's take him down beneath the lake with the child and begin the sealing ritual," Karasu said, almost casually. "You see, the sealing demands a price of one human life in exchange for harnessing such power in a child. I think it's best if we continue with the traditional method forged by those who created the strongest jinchuuriki of all time... and sacrifice the blood of the father to the son."

* * *

"Can't you get that child to _shut up?"_

Kaoru flinched, bouncing the baby in her arms for all the good it would do. His little face was red and screwed up, his hands clenched in tiny fists, and he would not be consoled. When she put him down in the old crib that had been used by the Zuru's children, he cried. When she picked him up and cuddled him, he cried.

The constant repetitive wails were beginning to grate on the men leaning against the wall near the doors, and the older woman from the upper house who had been put in charge of the child had slunk off a while ago, complaining that just because she was a woman didn't make her qualified to look after screaming infants, whatever Karasu thought. Now it was just Kaoru and Aki, desperately trying to hush the child before one of the men came over and tried to smother it.

"He needs food," Aki snapped angrily, in a voice she wouldn't have used if the men hadn't been branch family like her.

"Then give him some!" one of them snapped back as the other stuck his fingers in his ears.

"Give him what?" She spread her hands as if inviting him to look around. "We don't have any food fit for a baby in this place! The kitchen staff took everything in the pantries along with everything else!"

"Just give him milk!" he shouted. "That's why the gods gave you bloody women breasts!"

"Idiot!" she seethed. "If only things were as simple as your brain!"

"Wha..."

"You tear a newborn baby out of his mother's arms and this is what happens!" she said over the din. "Someone has to go to Ame and get some formula so he can eat! Go, or at this rate he's going to starve and that'll be a fine thing you'll have to break to Karasu when he returns!"

But the man only pulled a face and turned his back, determined to ignore her and the baby. Kaoru continued to make soft hushing noises as she held him gently, trying to keep the blankets gathered around him because he had no clothes besides having no food. He had plenty of reason to cry. His mother was gone, he'd travelled here with a body transfer jutsu that was upsetting enough for most adults, let alone newborn babies, and it was very likely that he would die – if not from starvation, then from whatever it was Karasu had in store for him.

Aki sat tiredly on the bed. She half wished she'd left with the other servants the day the household had woken up to hear Lady Zuru's shrieks that her husband had been murdered in his bed. Some of the servants had felt, not unreasonably, that now that their employer was dead, they now needed to seek work elsewhere. And the rest simply felt it was suicide to stay in this house with this clan any longer. Aki _would_ have gone with them, only she'd been sent to work here at Karasu's command and so naturally she could only leave at his command. Kaoru – silly, loyal, brave Kaoru – had stayed too for Aki's sake. Even though she had nowhere else to go, _anywhere_ was better than this estate right now, but Aki could threaten to end their friendship all she liked: Kaoru was going nowhere.

And now that Sakura's own child had been dumped in their laps...

Well, sufficed to say, they couldn't leave him to the mercy of such cold people.

"Where do you think Sakura is?" Kaoru whispered, her low voice covered by the infant's continued shrieking. The men by the door couldn't hear her.

"I don't want to think about it," Aki whispered back. No one had actually explained to them where the child had come from or whom it belonged to, but both could guess. Sakura had vanished from the estate several days ago, and now here was her child. It looked nothing like her, with its dark blue eyes and pale fuzzy hair that was probably some kind of strawberry blonde that was neither Sakura's colour nor Toshio's. Nevertheless, Aki could put two and two together, and since Sakura didn't seem to type to just give up a child without a fight, the chances were they really had finally killed her, as she'd always said they would.

"Turn him upside down," called the other man by the doors. "I hear that helps."

"If it's bothering you two so much, go stand outside," Aki said shortly.

The two men shrugged, but seemed to think it was a good plan, so they trooped out and slammed the door pointedly shut behind them. Almost at once, Kaoru visibly relaxed. She'd never been good around men. "Poor baby," she whispered, stroking a furiously red cheek. "I'd be crying too if I was being carried by a twit who didn't know what she was doing. Here. You hold him."

As if Aki knew any better. She took the squalling infant and held him close, trying to gently shush him though he was clearly having none of it. Both girls looked at each other in growing desperation.

"We might have some goats milk left," Kaoru said uncertainly. "I'll go check the pantry... it would be better than nothing at least."

Aki nodded and turned away to place the baby back in the crib as the other girl headed towards the door.

A loud crash echoed around the room. Kaoru gave a cry of alarm, and Aki whipped around to see her staring at the door. It appeared to have jumped in its frame... as if something very large and heavy had hit it from the other side. Both of them froze, forgetting the screaming child in Aki's arms. They could hear grunts and cries outside in the corridor – the sounds of fighting, and it wasn't long before the frightened girls flinched again as a second thud shook the door.

"Kaoru, get behind me!" Aki ordered, handing off the baby to the other girl who gratefully shrank behind her.

Aki didn't know what good she would be, standing between Kaoru and the door, but there was nowhere to run in this small bedroom. They could only hold their breath and wait... until slowly, one half of the set of doors that had been smashed out of its frame and off its tracks was winched open awkwardly.

A fat orange cat stalked in with its tail held high, followed closely by a smaller calico that zipped around it like a fly. The girls stared. The cats stared back. Then the second door jerked too, and in struggled a familiar young woman, lugging two limp bodies behind her. She stopped and dropped them when she saw them.

"Sakura!" Kaoru cried, almost accusingly. She _had _given them a pretty bad fright.

Out of breath and clutching a bad stitch in her side, Sakura could only stare in faint amazement at the two girls cowering near the bed. She shouldn't have been surprised that of all the hundreds of serving staff in this place, it would have been _them_ who were stupid enough to stick around. But right then she didn't particularly care about chastising them, or explaining why she was dressed like a kunoichi and had dragged two large and very unconscious men into the room. She didn't particularly care that she'd planned to shove those men in the nearest closet and bar the door, because now she'd found the source of those cries, and they were coming from the tiny child in Kaoru's arms.

Even from two floors away, Sakura had heard him, as if such a sound was etched into memories that went deeper and further back than even her own short existence,. She'd never heard these sobs before in her life, but she knew them like she knew the sound of her own voice. This was familiarity she couldn't describe. She hadn't thought; she'd just run and kicked and punched her way in and now she was faced with her son, she wasn't sure what to do.

She held out shaking hands. "C-can I?"

Now Kaoru looked twice as alarmed, probably because Sakura was asking permission to hold her own baby. "Of course..." she muttered weakly and hurried forward to push the baby, blankets and all, into Sakura's arms.

Those first few moments had to be some of the most awkward of her life. For a long time Sakura stood stiffly, uncertain of where to put her hands or balance the weight. She was terrified of dropping him, terrified of squeezing him against her, and while he screamed and squalled she wondered when the sense of motherly rightness was supposed to take over. When would he stop crying and recognise her?

It was exactly as she'd feared. Here she was, holding her own baby in her arms, and he was crying all the harder for it. _He doesn't know me_, she thought. _He doesn't like me. _

She looked at Kaoru and Aki, lost. "What's the matter with him?" she asked.

"He's hungry, that's all," Aki said quickly, as if she thought Sakura suspected they had done something to her baby.

Sakura's eyes widened only, and she suddenly sat on the bed. "Should I...?"

Both girls nodded a little desperately. _Anything _to stop the crying.

Hesitantly, as if not sure she was doing the right thing, Sakura peeled the zipper of her vest down and pushed aside the fabric of her bra. Throughout most of her pregnancy she'd noticed her breasts were bigger, but it was only in the last couple of days that they'd grown swollen to the point of pain. Tsunade had reassured her that once she started breastfeeding the tightness would fade, and she could see beads of thin, translucent milk beginning to seep from the tips. But while her body knew what to do, her baby didn't. Every time she tried to press his mouth encouragingly to her nipple, he was too busy crying to notice.

She looked up at the other girls in dismay. "I can't feed him..."

"That happens sometimes, I think," Kaoru said, having to raise her voice to be heard. "My mother said I was a reluctant sucker."

"She might not have been referring to your breastfeeding habits," Aki said dryly.

Kaoru shrugged. "I don't know. Some babies can be pretty stubborn, and when they're in a tantrum it can be impossible to get them to do anything, even stuff for their own good."

"Well, he's not exactly had a brilliant day. I guess when you're that young, being tossed around like a trophy between a load of strangers is pretty stressful."

They stopped talking, all of a sudden realising they no longer had to shout their conversation: the crying had stopped almost abruptly. On the bed sat Sakura, smiling down at the baby who was now suckling quietly as if he'd never been upset in the first place.

"And I guess... some kids are more easy-going than others," Kaoru said with a shrug.

Sakura stroked her finger over the wispy, almost bald head of her son. She didn't care what colour it was right then; she was simply marvelling that this tiny little creature looked _nothing_ like a mushroom, and he was all hers. It was her body that had created him and her milk that he'd cried for. This had to be what it felt like to be a mother... to look down at the child you created and know that at least one person in this world needed you.

He was half of her. And as she watched suckle as easily as if there had never been the slightest peculiarity about his birth, she understood what they meant when people said children were the closest to immortality humans would ever truly get.

At that moment, Nya was attempting to shimmy up her leg and onto her lap to get a closer look. Dokko had effectively sat on her tail to keep her still, but his senses were all sharply attuned to the wide open doorway. His whiskers twitched uneasily. "We can't stay here," he warned. "People are moving around out there... they'll come this way eventually."

Aki stared. "How is that cat talking?" Kaoru whispered in horror.

Dokko glared at her. "I'll have you know us cats can talk as well as any human," he said.

"Up let Nya!" cried Nya, gnawing on his tail.

Dokko sighed.

"I thought only ninja summons could talk," Aki said, looking at the animals in consternation. "Like Uncle's wolves."

"We _are_ ninja summons," said Dokko. "

"Then," she said, looking now at Sakura with new appreciation. "You're a ninja?"

Sakura nodded without tearing her eyes away from Enoki.

"Have you... always been a ninja?" Kaoru asked delicately.

"I'm sorry I had to lie to you guys..." Sakura said quietly. "I was sent here to find a lead to the Syndicate that was attacking my village... and, well, I found it."

"You really are from Konoha then." Aki's eyes were wide. "Yui always said you were, but I thought that was just because she didn't like you. So you were spying on us all along?"

"Trying to escape, mostly," Sakura said darkly, before a new thought occurred to her. "Where _is _Yui?"

The girls looked at each other and shrugged. "She... disappeared... just before everyone left," said Aki.

"She might have gone with them," Kaoru said.

"She was far too weak to make the trip..." Aki worried her lip. "What if... what if she was got by the poisoner?"

Sakura debated whether or not to tell them Yui herself had been the one and only poisoner. Although that didn't mean she hadn't made a second attempt on her own life, it was curious how she'd disappeared not long after she'd promised to go tell Karasu the truth about Sakura and her baby. Had she gotten that far? Did Karasu know?

Suddenly Kaoru sniffed audibly. "Do you smell something burning?"

By now the whole of the mews was probably up in flames, which suited Sakura just fine, as now was a good a time as any to make a run for it while everyone was distracted. Wherever Kakashi was, she would have to trust he knew what he was doing, because now that she held their baby in her arms she knew he was right... she had to leave now, regardless of whether Kakashi would follow.

"You two should get out of here soon," Sakura said to the other girls. "Head to Ame. The Syndicate's done a lot of harm to my village... and once they push back Iwa, they'll be here in force looking for retribution. I don't think they'll be too discriminating who they capture, especially if your last name is Hatake." Just because they weren't involved didn't mean they were safe, and Aki especially would come under suspicion for simply being a blood relation.

"I don't have anywhere to go..." Kaoru said quietly.

"You can stay with me and my mother's family," Aki told her. "If Sakura says we have to leave, I believe her."

"Sakura!" Dokko said, surging urgently to his feet. "They're coming."

Much to Enoki's whimpering protest, Sakura rose swiftly and zipped up her vest. She looked around desperately for an escape route.

With only one set of doors and no windows, Aki looked about helplessly. "But there's no way out of here!"

Sakura wasn't so worried. "Come visit me in Konoha sometime," she said, eyes scanning the floor. "Maybe you can babysit Enoki again?"

Before the maids could reply, Sakura drew up her foot and smashed it into the floor. Wood splintered, dust exploded upwards, and plaster from the ceiling below poured down into the room beneath them. The girls coughed, flapping their hands to clear the cloud of dusts and the last they saw of Sakura was a faint silhouette dropping soundlessly through the new architectural feature of their small guestroom.

As Sakura ran through the interconnecting chambers below, holding Enoki close to her chest, Dokko and Nya lopped easily alongside her. "I hope you know where you're going," he grumbled.

"What do you take me for?" she said, coming to a stop beside a wall draped in a tapestry wider than her owning living room back in Konoha. With one hand employed in holding the baby, she used the other to lift the heavy cloth to grab the handle of the small, wooden door behind it.

There were nooks and crannies in this house that only servants knew about, ones that the Hatake clan had never seen and were likely to miss if they were half a beat behind her. Perhaps not even the Zuru family knew of some of the little doors and passages of the home they'd lived in all their lives.

Sakura dived down the narrow staircase and into the plunging, gloomy darkness of the undercroft. From here she could reach any side of the estate unseen through this maze of underground passages, and so she headed south to where the kitchens lay and where the edge of the forest was closest. Enoki remained mercifully quiet. In fact she was almost certain he had fallen asleep inside his cocoon of blankets.

"They're up ahead," Dokko warned again.

They changed direction, sprinting off down a corridor that branched left. This was where all the pantries lay, and Nya kept stopped to snaffle a scrap of food that had been dropped when the servants had raided the food stores. She was so fast that she caught up again easily before Dokko could scold her.

The kitchens were just a few hundred metres ahead. She could go up and out through the very door she'd first entered this estate all those months ago, and make a dash over the stile and be in the trees before anyone could stop her. They could follow, but with her chakra back in her own control, she had plenty of methods of destroying and hiding her trail-

A harsh, cackling sound filled the underground passage.

"Birdie!" Nya cried happily, bounding ahead to find the source of the noise.

Sakura's feet slithered under her as she attempt to stop and wheel around. "Go back!" she shouted to the cats. _"Go back!"_

It was already too late. A large black wing clipped her ear as the crow overshot them. Sakura reached for a shuriken in her holster and threw it, but with the baby in one arm, her aim was off, and the bird banked sharply and dropped to the tunnel's floor in a dignified flutter of feathers. Sakura began to back away, fingers fumbling for another metal star, while Dokko growled threateningly.

Nya, whose heart held more bravery than her head held sense, streaked past Sakura and pounced upon the crow, teeth and claws flashing. But somewhere between the split second she leapt and the moment she landed, the bird became a man.

The cat was thrown with such force against the stone wall of the corridor that her small body met it with an audible crack. Sakura knew she was gone before she ever hit the ground. Her throat constricted painfully. "Nya..."

"There you are," Karasu said pleasantly as he straightened.

Plain common sense told her it was no use trying to outrun him now, and with her arms occupied holding the baby, there weren't many jutsu she could use. If he came close she could possibly kick his kneecaps into next week, but right now he was keeping his distance. He seemed wary.

"Nice try there, Ms Arsonist," he said, as if she was nothing more than a recalcitrant brat. "You've lost us quite a few of our birds, but don't worry. New messengers are easily trained, and all the contacts are right here." He tapped his head. "We'll recover in a month or less; no harm done, no grudges held. So why don't we keep it civil and you hand over the baby quietly right now."

Enoki was beginning to fuss again, making squeaky sounds of distress. He could have been picking up on his mother's feelings but it was just as likely that he was still hungry. He couldn't possibly understand what kind of danger he was in.

"And what do you plan to do with him?" she asked contemptuously.

"We'll make him strong," Karasu enthused. "Strong enough to rival your friend the Kyuubi."

Sakura tried not to let the surprise show on her face. He knew who she was. He knew _exactly_ who she was.

"What mother wouldn't want her son to do well in life?" Karasu asked reproachfully. "Hand him over."

"That's not how it works," she said through clenched teeth. "If you only knew half the pain Naruto has been through..."

"And look at him now, a trusted friend of the five great nations and revered in all the rest. Would you deny your child this opportunity, Haruno Sakura?"

She took a sharp step back. The sound of her name on his lips felt wrong. Not even Yui had known her real name, so he couldn't have learned of her identity from that one sick girl. Suddenly she wasn't very confident that the one who had been fooled about her place here had been him. Just how much did he know... and _how long_ had he known it?

"Since when...?"

He laughed. "Since I saw you in Jonan with Kakashi. It was quite remarkable how you knocked over that poor boy in the middle of the club..."

"You knew all along?" she whispered.

Karasu took a step after her. "Give him to me, Sakura."

"Or what?" she bit out.

"Or I'll kill you," he said quite seriously. "Which will be a shame, because you have no idea that you've only lived this long because I've been protecting you so carefully."

Bullshit. She shook her head at him. "If you try and hurt me, you risk hurting the baby. You won't-"

His laugh interrupted her. "Using your baby as a shield, Sakura? How very honourable," he chuckled. "But even my kindness has limits. After all, any baby will do for my purposes, but you only have the one, and you're incredibly weakened right now so which of the two of us do you think has the most to lose if the baby is hurt? And what do you think I'm going to do? Let you run off to the latest ANBU team heading this way? Oh, that's right, they're not coming, are they? Defending the village takes precedence before saving one small child. Kakashi told me all about that."

"Where is Kakashi?" she demanded.

"He's with us now."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped.

He shrugged. "The plan's been explained to him in full, and he's quite... compliant now. As long as you aren't hurt, he's agreed to cooperate fully with us, because strangely he's not too keen on going back to a grotty little cell in Konoha." Before she could open her mouth and protest he added, "That is, of course, depending on how difficult you insist on making this. I don't _have _to hurt you, but then you don't _have_ to put up such an unnecessary struggle now, do you?"

"Kakashi would never just go along with this," she protested. "He-"

"You think just because he's that boy's father he'll back you up?"

Sakura's mouth snapped shut and went decidedly dry.

"Did it cross your mind that perhaps Kakashi wants to keep things within the clan? That he doesn't want to sit in a prison and have his child raised by nobodies, not knowing who he is or what kind of nobility he's descended from? That boy is one of us. It's undeniable, just look at him. He belongs with us. He belongs with Kakashi."

Sakura's lips thinned. "He's a Haruno, through and through."

Karasu smirked.

"His hair is pink!"

Karasu's smile disappeared. "It's brown."

"Keep telling yourself that," she muttered. "He's coming home with me."

She took another step back and began to turn, warily keeping her eyes on Karasu. Just then his image seemed to blur before her eyes and before she knew what was happening or could summon her chakra and aim a kick, a hand had twisted into her hair and thrown her backwards against the stone wall. The air left her lungs with a winded cry, and she slumped, clutching the pain in the back of her skull.

Enoki was beginning to cry in earnest now. It took her a moment to realise it was because there was an arm between her and her baby, attempting to wrench him away from her. "NO!" she screamed, trying desperately to hold on, her heart breaking as Enoki's sobs grew frantically louder.

Karasu didn't care about hurting him, she realised. He would happily break his little bones to get what he wanted, and Sakura knew she had no choice.

She let go.

A dry sob left her too as she attempted to stand and follow Karasu's retreating figure. But she was winded and bleeding. The stitches in her abdomen had torn, and her maternity pad had soaked, and she _didn't know what to do_. Karasu had her baby, but she couldn't stop him. She couldn't attack him like he'd attacked her. She couldn't risk missing him and injuring Enoki instead.

Karasu knew it. His smile was triumphant, and he seemed to enjoy hearing her whispered pleading.

"I really don't have any interest in killing you," he said. "You're free to leave this place. Don't worry. I'm sure someone as young and nubile as you will have many more children to fill the gaping, _gaping_ hole left by this one."

He laughed one last time and lifted a hand in the form of a bird seal. He disappeared. The baby's screams and the man's laughter echoed on nevertheless, reverberating around the long underground tunnels and inside Sakura's own head.

She could see the crow standing where Karasu had been, and she lurched towards it unthinkingly. Perhaps if she could just catch it – figure out where they had gone – it wasn't too late to –

The crow squawked and flapped over her head to soar away down the passage into darkness. She had to follow it, she told herself. But what good would that do? It was the only thing she could do. No, wait...

She forced herself to calm down and think. Karasu had probably taken the baby to the Rokubi... which was certainly somewhere beneath the lake. Perhaps if she started searching now, she might...?

"Sakura."

She started, forgetting she wasn't alone, and saw Dokko crouched and trembling at the side of the passage, trying to wash Nya's still face. "She always forgets to de-summon herself in time," he said. "I keep telling her, but she always forgets."

She crawled over and gently lifted the limp cat on her lap and held a hand above her, trying to summon her healing chakra. But when she looked at Nya, her mind was elsewhere. She saw her baby. Her beautiful little boy with a peach fluff halo, and though she'd only held him briefly, it had been long enough to know that she loved this little creature more than anything or anyone in the entire world. Her heart was simultaneously bursting with the intensity of that love, and crumbling to pieces because he had been snatched away again so easily.

Her hand remained cold, Nya remained lifeless.

"I can't..." she whispered, her eyes streaming as she tried to pull herself together to save this one small life when she desperately feared for the lives of her son and her lover. Healing animals had never been her forte. "I'm sorry..."

"Please," Dokko said, sounding lost. "She's just a kitten."

Shaking fingers wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry," she just repeated, knowing she was apologising not only to Dokko, but to Nya, and Enoki, and Kakashi, and herself for having failed.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Six-tailed Jinchuuriki_


	44. The Sixtailed Jinchuuriki

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Forty-Three: The Six-tailed Jinchuuriki

* * *

_If I should die this very moment,_

_I wouldn't fear,_

_For I've never known completeness,_

_Like being here._

* * *

The blindfold was the worst.

Kakashi could hear the sounds of the terrible beast rattling beneath its chains and feel its heaving snorts rustle his hair and fill the vast, echoing chamber with a cloying fug, but he couldn't see it. Almost as bad as the fact that he couldn't see the vast monster nearby was the fact that he was chained up like a sacrificial virgin before it. Experimentally he flexed his arms against the restraints that seemed to emerge from the ground like the ones holding the Rokubi, and was reminded once again that his week, which so far had consisted of being chained to several other things too, was still not looking up. The only plus was that Karasu wasn't there to gloat at him irritatingly, and all he could hope for was that by some miracle he'd given Sakura enough time to find the baby and leave the estate.

He wasn't, however, alone. Most of the clan seemed to be down here, although they were behind him, keeping their distance from the smouldering bijuu that alternated between a sulky black bird and an indelible fireball. They were here to observe, he thought, or hide from the impending ANBU invasion. None of them were inclined to help him out. Every time he attempted to call out, even singling them out by name, he was met by a profound silence.

"Takashi... Sano... Kaname?" he called calmly. "He's going to kill me. Are you content with that?"

He imagined that there was a guilty kind of edge to the silent treatment he was getting, but guilt wasn't as helpful as action. He wondered about all the things he'd done to protect his family – all the bridges he'd burned with his village, both literally and figuratively – and he wondered if any of it had been worth it.

"... isn't a good idea."

"Karasu never said anything about dying-"

"...that's the only way it'll work."

"We need the protection of the bijuu to survive the villages..."

But the whispers were quickly hushed by the rumble of discontent from the tailed beast and Kakashi couldn't identify the owners of the voices anyway. Perhaps not all of his family were at ease with Karasu's plans. Nevertheless, not one of them would cross the clan leader; not to save the black sheep of the family who'd done little to earn their trust.

Underneath the slow, thundering pants of the bijuu, another noise suddenly rose up. The screaming of a baby.

Kakashi's lungs stopped working. _No... please... _

He strained valiantly against the manacles and tried to shake his head hard enough to dislodge the blindfold. Around him he heard the scratch of footsteps on the hot ground, the whimpering child was being brought closer, and then suddenly a hand was touching the top of his head while another tugged up the blindfold from his right eye.

Karasu leaned into his field of vision. "Hello," he greeted happily, and only once he'd stepped back to Kakashi finally see the scene around him, like the stage curtain had finally been lifted and he was the audience to make of the props what he would.

Immediately his gaze was drawn to the monstrous bijuu. It was exactly as he remembered, and though it was subdued and breathing deeply, it's sharply intelligent eyes were following Karasu's smaller figure as the man walked back and forth out of reach of its beak, checking the blood seals drawn on the ground. Of these there were more than Kakashi recalled. Looking at the ground, it was a sprawling masterpiece of art of looping invocations and rings of power. Kakashi looked down and realised he was chained right in the middle of one of the biggest.

A few metres away, in the largest circle of seals, lay a bundle of screaming blankets, out of which two little arms were waving about frantically. It was difficult to look away from that sight, and all too easy to entirely forget that there was a giant mythical monster in the room. All too easy to forget Karasu approaching him with a kunai...

At least until that kunai had slashed across his arm. Kakashi flinched. Hideous amounts of blood began to pour down his arm into a waiting pot Karasu was holding in his other hand.

"Where's Sakura?" he demanded. He'd been so certain that Sakura would have found the baby before Karasu.

"She's fine," said Karasu blithely. "I explained the plan, and she handed the baby over amicably and said 'do what you like, I never liked that Kakashi guy anyway, and you're much more handsome'. Isn't that nice?"

But Kakashi could smell her blood on him. "What have you done to her?" he asked coldly.

"Nothing I'm sure she didn't not enjoy," he laughed.

"Did you always know who she was?"

Karasu kept his eye on the quickly filling pot. "Always," he said softly. "Since the moment I saw her in the foyer when I arrived and I saw that wonderfully awful hair I knew who she was. Or at least I knew she worked with you since I saw you together in Jonan. It wasn't until she told me her name was Sakura that I figured she was probably the same Sakura you've talked about in the past... the student, wasn't it? And the moment my wolf told me she was almost certainly pregnant by one of our family, I suspected it was you. I wasn't totally certain, however. Not till I went to the doctor and he gave me scans that proved she was eighteen weeks pregnant when she had only been at the estate and within Toshio's greasy reach for eight. By the way, I've been meaning to ask you for _so _long... isn't she a little _young_ for you? You cradle robber."

Kakashi looked at his son, whose little legs were kicking angrily at the blankets. "Look who's talking."

"Ah!" Karasu paused. "I walked into that one, didn't I?"

He stirred the pot of blood with his finger and walked behind Kakashi with a chuckle. A moment later and Kakashi felt the same kunai cutting through his clothes, tearing the ANBU vest and close-fitting shirt away from his body to expose his back. Karasu's finger began tracing words and seals across his shoulders... in his own blood.

"I'll give you ten out of ten for commitment," Kakashi ground out. "But I still don't see why it was totally necessary for you to use this particular child. In the time you wasted waiting for it to be born and giving me the run around, you could have experimented on hundreds of children to your satisfaction. Are you doing this just to spite me?"

He already knew the answer, but he didn't know how else to buy time. "This isn't an experiment, Kakashi," Karasu said evenly. "I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't perfectly certain it would work. And it's nothing personal against you... only you're in the way. You've always been in the way."

Kakashi shrugged, and was satisfied to hear Karasu's grunt of annoyance as he smudged his work. "Release me and the kid. I'll happily get out of your way for good. You should have just said something."

"I have," Karasu said. "I told you that this clan would never be set to rights again unless the leadership returned to the true heir. I'm finally correcting the disruption to the line of accession your father caused by abandoning us."

"By killing the true heir?" Kakashi asked incredulously.

"That _was_ the case. But then you went and had a son, didn't you?"

Kakashi was silent.

"Of course, and I'm going to make him more powerful than you and I could ever have dreamed of becoming. And best of all, _I'm_ going to be his father. I might have given you back the title of leadership long ago if you hadn't made it plain that your father had formed you in his image. You were always so detached from the clan, tactfully rebuking every effort I made to enlist your help against Konoha, until you suddenly turned up looking for your girlfriend and pretending you were here to help us. So, no, I won't give you the chance to corrupt your own son the same way. You may be his biological father, but it'll be me he calls 'daddy', and it'll be me he learns from, and my philosophies he adopts. He'll be the true leader of this clan, and he'll be _my_ legacy. You will simply be the poor unfortunate father who died to give him life, but whom he never knew and will never care about. And his mother? Well, I'll just tell him the truth... she was a nobody who never even wanted him anyway."

"Who're you kidding, Karasu," Kakashi said, his face white with fury. "You can't be trusted with kids. You'll probably drop him on his head in the first week."

"That's why they have that soft spot, isn't it? So they bounce?"

Kakashi closed his eyes in a silent prayer for divine intervention; if anyone deserved to be smote by lightning bolt or enormous flaming birds, it was Karasu. A million cutting insults were perched on the tip of his tongue, waiting to burst out and savage his cousin, but he knew that giving into his anger now would only amuse Karasu and underscore his own powerlessness. So he held his calm and instead said, "I never realised you hated me so much."

"Hate? I don't hate you, Kakashi," Karasu said, coming around to face him and looking strangely compassionate given his fingers were stained with Kakashi's blood. "I've pitied you, yes, because you're just another indoctrinated fool in the end, so don't think of this as an act of hate or vengeance for all the trouble you've caused me – you've been _quite_ helpful in feeding Konoha the wrong information after all – think of this as like putting a beloved puppy with distemper to sleep. Ok?"

Brilliant, thought Kakashi. "I still don't think it's perfectly necessary to kill me."

"It is to create a jinchuuriki, I'm afraid," Karasu lamented. "The smoothest transitions to sealing a bijuu have always been when the blood of the sacrifice is the same as the blood of the host. The nine-tails, the one-tail and the previous six-tailed jinchuuriki were all formed through the sacrifice of a parent. Do you want to see him?"

"See who?" Kakashi grumbled.

"One of the last vessels of the Rokubi," Karasu said. "It was his writings and research that Iwa gave me when they handed us the bijuu. He's been _extremely_ useful to me. Lived to a ripe old age too. Isn't that reassuring?"

Out of his back pockets Karasu produced an old piece of folded paper with his sticky blood-stained fingers and flapped it out carelessly for Kakashi, who blinked slowly at what appeared to be a very ancient sketch of ink and watercolour.

It was a picture of an old man who was in every possible way quite ordinary looking. All expect for the nose that protruded a good foot from his face.

"Uh..." he said, staring.

"If you're wondering about the nose," Karasu said lightly, amusement playing thickly in his voice, "I'm told all Jinchuuriki retain some physical resemblance of their bijuu. It's why the hosts of the tengu bird are... some of the most recognisable."

Kakashi continued to stare at the sketch, and all he could think after that was, _Oh. Hell. No._

* * *

"Come on, come on, _please..."_

Sakura pushed her hair out of her face and tried once more to force her chakra into the little cat. Each time the light around her hands flickered uselessly for a moment before fading, and each time Sakura felt herself pushed a little bit closer to the edge of desperation. She had to find Karasu and her son. But she couldn't leave Nya and Dokko like this. They'd stood by her through so much she couldn't abandon them now.

With one urgent need to carry on looking for her child and another to help her most faithful companions, Sakura felt she was being torn in two. On top of it all, she was bleeding out, though she refused to lift a hand to help herself until she saved Nya.

But she was not alone in the undercroft.

Dokko heard it first; the slow, steady _thock... thock... thock... _of something coming down the dark passage towards them. His ears twitched and flattened and he turned twitchily, staring into the darkness as Sakura whispered anxious pleas to the calico kitten. She didn't notice what held his attention until she heard the low, cracking voice speak from the shadows.

"Ah... the kunoichi from Konoha."

Sakura looked up bleakly at the figure stumping slowly towards them, unable to feel fear or surprise. Gradually she realised it was nothing but an old man, shuffling along with his wooden stick striking the stone ground as regularly as a slow clock. Stooped, he was only about as tall as she was, but she could see that when he'd been a young man he must have been as tall as Kakashi. He even looked a bit like him.

The old man stopped barely a metre away from where she sat, and finally his smell rolled over them... and Sakura was reminded curiously of a particular time when Kakashi had taken the team through an opium den to find an informant.

"What's all this then?" he croaked, looking at her tear-stained face before turning his eyes to the kitten in her lap. "Your summon?"

"I can't heal her..." Sakura whispered, not caring that he was just another enemy. She felt there was so little left for these people to take from her, that she no longer had the energy to put up her guard.

"Nonsense. One mammal is the same as any other on the inside, although with ones as small as this things tend to get fiddly... let me see." The old man crouched and lay his stick down on the ground to peer at the perfectly still cat on Sakura's lap. With one hand he reached out and waggled his fingers slightly. A warm white glow engulfed hand and cat, and Sakura noticed his chakra was almost exactly like Kakashi's.

Staring at his hands that were shaking ever so slightly, she asked, "Who _are_ you?" She hadn't known there were any medics in the Hatake clan, because this jutsu wasn't the kind of passing first aid that some overly accomplished smartasses like Kakashi usually possessed. This was the intensive studied-healing-for-fifty-years kind of jutsu.

"Most people, my lovely offspring included, call me the Coffin Dodger," he said. "Everyone else knows me as Enoki, or Eno."

Sakura audibly gasped and looked at the man with wide eyes. "Oh my god," she whispered, aghast, "Are you... supposed to be my son from the future, or something?" She didn't think she could take any more of Karasu's awful mind games.

The glow steadily faded from his hands as he stared back at her. "I'm senile," he muttered, "but I don't know what your excuse is."

A soft furry head butted Sakura's hand. "Sakura... Sakura..." came a small, feeble little voice.

Dokko roared to life, purring so loudly the noise filled the whole passage. Pressed against Sakura's knee, he washed Nya's face enthusiastically – so enthusiastically that Nya was in danger of falling off Sakura's lap, but she was purring weakly too.

One of the many knots that had been suffocating Sakura's heart loosened, and she sagged against the wall with a sigh. "Dokko... take Nya back. I can manage alone form here," she said, tugging on Nya's ear affectionately.

"You heard her," Dokko said softly to the little cat, who didn't argue. With a soft pop she disappeared, closely followed by Dokko, until the only ones left in the undercroft were Sakura and the strange old man who shared her son's name.

"Thank you," she said quietly, looking uncertainly up at him through her lashes. It occurred to her that she'd never had cause to thank _any_ Hatake member before, aside from Kakashi.

"Cats are easy, once you get the hang of them. I'm sure you'll learn that too, one day. The good thing about investing in healing techniques is that your knowledge only gets better with age, even if your speed, strength, and endurance start to leave you. You can be a better medic at ninety than at thirty, but not a better fighter. Don't you think?"

Sakura honestly didn't know what to think.

"What about yourself?" he asked. "This is no place for a new mother."

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be," she said. "I have to find my son."

"The little one? I think he's under the lake right now, being implanted as we speak."

Sakura glared ferociously.

The old man jerked back, clutching his chest. "Goodness! That almost turned me to stone!"

"I don't need jokes," she ground out, forcing herself to stand as she pressed a hand to his oozing stitches, tacitly healing them as she spoke. "Thank you for helping my cat, but if you intend to stand in my way, I will break that stick over your head."

"How rude. I can't see why Kakashi likes you at all," he said. "But as you can see I'm in no fit state to stand in anyone's way. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it."

"I see," she said warily.

"Now if you were to ask me for _help_, that might be another matter. I was thinking of asking you for the same."

Sakura blinked at him incredulously. "What?"

"My brother's grandson has been a little troublesome lately. He's happily been usurping the authority of our true heir for a long time, and everyone's scared stiff enough of him to let him. And with good reason... he's a maniac. A clever one, but a maniac to be sure. The only one who could legitimately challenge him is the only one with no interest in doing so, which is problematic, because if Kakashi can't bring himself to kill Karasu, then I'm at a loss as to finding someone who _is_ willing."

He cast a beady eye over the livid markings on her face. "I'm willing to bet you wouldn't mind seeing Karasu dead."

"It wouldn't keep me up at night, no," she said slowly. Actually it would probably help her sleep all the more soundly.

"Then we have another thing in common."

"You want your great nephew dead?" she asked.

"He's not that _great_, but I know what has to be done if war is to be finished. Karasu is nothing but a spoilt brat who grew up in peace time – he has no comprehension of what war is really like besides sitting back and orchestrating one from safe anonymity. He hears stories of the days when this clan used to be revered as a clan of powerful fighters and wants to revisit those days, but I lost four brothers and two sisters in the last war we fought in, and we were on the winning side. Karasu will do nothing but bring the full wrath of all the villages down on this family, and then we'll _all_ be dead. I have grandchildren to think about. The youngest is barely older than your boy. How do you think all this makes me feel? All an old man has left at this point is the reassurance than his children and grandchildren will outlive him, and Karasu's actions have let all the safety and security we took so long trying to build just... slip away."

"If I could kill Karasu, I would," said Sakura little impatiently. "You don't have to convince me he's better off dead than alive. He's _taken _my son."

"I suppose you want him back, then?"

Sakura waited, unwilling to state the bleeding obvious.

"There's a crow," said the old Enoki, "Under the lake. It's there for me, so that I might observe the momentous occasion when Karasu kills one heir and sentences another to insanity. But I don't really feel like watching such an abomination, so perhaps you might like to go in my stead?"

Sakura blinked. "You'll show me how to get under the lake?"

"Not everyone can swim it, that's why some of the crows were placed down there. Do you know how body transfer jutsu works?"

She nodded slightly. She'd experienced it before with Kakashi, and seen Karasu perform in twice right in front of her, both times with her son.

"Then you know you'll be on your own down there. You'll probably die. There won't be any ANBU coming to back you up... not since Karasu persuaded Iwa to attack." He sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Might be worth it if you save your son and take Karasu down with you though. And maybe Kakashi too."

"What? Save him or take him down?"

"Whichever takes your fancy, I suppose," Enoki laughed.

"Hmm." Sakura hummed uncertainly. She'd had her fair share of tricks during the last few months and she wasn't sure it was so wise to trust a stranger who was, after all, a Hatake. But then the more pessimistic side of her warned that there was very little anyone could do to her now that could suck worse than her current predicament.

Sure, this guy was offering to throw her face-first into a figurative firestorm without any known escape plan, but right now, what else could she do? How much time did she have left before Karasu implanted a monster into her brand new child? Was this really a time to play it safe.

"Alright," she said, nodding faintly. "If you can get me in there, do it."

He lifted his chin. "Pardon?"

"What?"

"I didn't hear a 'please'."

"Ah-"

"Young people shouldn't neglect their manners so."

"Well-"

"Well?"

"… please?"

The man's mouth widened in a mostly toothless grin and with a speed that defied his swollen, arthritic joints, his hands whipped through a series of seals that almost had her eyes spinning. At the last moment, when she saw him forming the bird seal, she felt the familiar tug of the body transfer jutsu, and the prickly sensation of feathers sprouting from her skin spread over her like a wave.

Then the feathers split away and she was staggering on uneven ground. The change in the air quality let her know she was far deeper underground than she'd been a moment ago, and instinctively she crouched, knowing that wherever she was she had been tossed like a figurative pigeon amongst the cats.

But as her eyes adjusted to the murky lighting, she realised the only other presence in this underground chamber was the gardener, snoring away on a seat of rock, oblivious to her sudden appearance only a few feet from him. Sakura looked around. This wasn't exactly a chamber, more of a tunnel that sloped upwards in a staggering – following a vein of water. It seemed to end at a suspiciously smooth rock wall besides which the gardener was sleeping, and only then did Sakura spot the paper seal pasted in the middle of it. She'd seen enough to recognise its basic function.

Issuing a quick Henge jutsu to don the guise of the old man who had sent her down here, she reached up and peeled the paper away.

The stirring of rock roused the gardener who opened one bleary eye and mumbled something like 'you're late' before promptly going back to sleep. Sakura, however, hardly noticed. She was too shocked at the scene that opened up before as the rock wall yawned wide.

Other Hatake standing around almost shrouded her view. A few turned and registered her dully, but thought nothing of her appearance. Sakura instead was staring at the phenomenal monster that filled most of the gigantic cavern. She'd seen the nine-tailed fox on a rampage before which was about as impressive as any bijuu could get, but it was one thing to see such a terrible creature running wild according to its nature. It was another to see it chained up and subdued, like some domesticated pet. It was worse... because she knew that anyone with the power to control such a beast had to be themselves a beast of an even more wicked kind.

And there he was, standing and laughing and taunting a half-naked man that was also held down by chains. Through the fumes of sulphur and the echoing rumble of a giant's breathing and a small man's laughing, she heard a baby screaming. Her baby. She looked immediately to the bundle of blankets lying almost abandoned on the ground between Kakashi and the bijuu, and had to curb her compulsive desire to throw aside all sense and reason to run to him. She wouldn't get three feet before someone cut her down.

So she forced herself to breathe and remain calm. It seemed like at any moment that bijuu could reach out and crush her little baby in a heartbeat, but the monster was in Karasu's control. It wouldn't – couldn't – hurt the baby. Not yet. There was still time to devise a plan.

"-inhuman! You wouldn't dare!"

Sakura's eyes jerked back to Kakashi who, she noticed, was straining quite hard against his bonds, and shouting with more hostility than she thought he was capable of possessing. "I'll kill you for this! It's one thing to do this to a child – it's another to do _that_! Monster!"

"I wouldn't mind a son with a big nose if he could crush whole villages under his fist. He might be laughed at a little, but-"

"A little?!"

"Ok, maybe a lot, but you have to admit-"

"Admit nothing! Let me up so I can beat the hell out of your, you double-crossing piss-ant! You've gone too far this time!"

"Mind your language in front of the baby, Kakashi!"

"Fuck you!"

"Oh well. Your corrupting influence is at an end. Let's get on with the sealing, shall we?"

Everyone in the chamber seemed to sit up a little straighter, as if these were the very words they'd been waiting for all along. Even the bijuu seemed to swell as his feathers rose and flickered to flaming life. It wasn't happy. It didn't want to be sealed. Karasu turned to raise his hand and give it a command, and it began to subside. Sakura looked around desperately for some way to avert this approaching disaster.

Seeing a shard of rock on the ground, she seized it without thinking. It was sharp; lethal. She looked at Karasu's turned back and the temptation had her hand twitching. But she knew a monster when she saw it. Years of training forbid her to waste her one shot on a man whose rank was far above her own, and if she could dodge kunai, then he _would_ dodge a stray rock.

She looked at Kakashi, and the muscles straining in his bare back as he fought to overcome his chains by sheer strength. There was something written on his back... in red... in blood. In a fresh pang of alarm, Sakura realised these symbols and scrawls matching the ring of seals on the ground around him and around Enoki, and ultimately around the bijuu.

Kakashi was _part_ of the seal.

Sakura had done her research in the past. She knew that in every attempt to seal a bijuu into a human, however different the methods used, there had always been some kind of exchange of life, like destroying the future of the host was not enough for this costly transaction. The closer the blood of the sacrifice was to the host, the more successful the transaction. And right then she knew that Kakashi was this intended sacrifice.

She made her decision. Drawing back her hand, she let the rock fly, helped along with a charge of chakra. Karasu turned sharply at the sound of shattering metal links, but by then it was already too late. Kakashi was already getting to his feet, using his free hand to sever the remaining chain and lift the blindfold off his eye.

Like a cat that had been dumped in a bath of cold water, Karasu's jovial mood was gone in an instant. "Who threw that?!" he hissed.

"Never mind that now, Karasu," Kakashi said quietly. "Keep your eyes on me now."

He ran at him, swinging the broken chains still dangling from his wrists like weapons. Karasu didn't meet his eye – didn't meet his _sharingan –_ keeping his sights instead on Kakashi's feet and hands, leaping back to avoid the first swipe of heavy chain, but not quite managing to avoid the second that wrapped around his arm. Incensed, he tried to pull Kakashi over, but while he had the edge in weight, Kakashi crouched, lowering his centre of gravity and reaching out to grab Karasu by the front of his shirt. In one swift tug, he flicked his cousin over his head and onto his back, pinning him with a foot.

A few members of the clan began to move forward.

"Stay back, you idiots!" Karasu shouted. "You trample the seals and it'll all be for nothing!"

A small figure darted out of the crowd of Hatake, rushing straight for the baby. Kakashi's brain skipped a little when he recognised her. This was the last place he wanted her to be, but now that she was here, he knew he needed her help.

Karasu saw her too, and in the moment Kakashi was distracted he lifted the arm that wasn't bound to Kakashi and shouted a command at the bijuu.

Inexorably, the monstrous bird shifted, stretching out one clawed wing and brought it down on the baby with a slam that made the whole cavern shudder. Sakura screamed but didn't stop. She disappeared into the cloud of dust billowing up around the bijuu's wing.

"Sakura!" Kakashi tried to move, forgetting he was still chained to Karasu. His cousin pulled back down, bringing him to a sudden, staggering halt with his weight. The manacle around his wrist was heating – his flesh beginning to hiss underneath the band of metal – he looked around to see Karasu quietly chanting the words of a fire jutsu, and he quickly shattered the softening chain the connected them, reeling back to cradle his burnt arm. It wasn't wise to turn his back on Karasu, and he was torn between facing his most dangerous opponent and running to help Sakura and their baby.

Sakura and the baby won; after firing an electric imitation of a dog at Karasu, he turned and ran towards the clearing dust. He could see Sakura, struggling to get close to the bijuu. It's aura of colossal chakra alone was enough to kill the faint-hearted, and within arm-reach on one gigantic talon, she looked close to collapsing. The baby was still crying. Not crushed, but caged impossibly beneath those claws. There was no way to get at it without risking being burned to a crisp by its chakra.

Before Kakashi could reach Sakura and physically haul her away from the bijuu, a powerful kick to his back left him sprawling on the ground. He looked dizzily up at Karasu.

"Get back in the ring, Kakashi," his cousin ordered, pointing to the seal on the floor like a parent might to a bedroom. "You can't win this, you... will you at least pay attention when I'm kicking your ass?"

Kakashi was struggling to his feet again, trying to get to Sakura who was punching weakly at the bijuu's talons to get to the baby. If she didn't pass out from the force of the chakra, she was almost certainly going to get sliced if that bird so much as twitched a claw. It was already staring at her with angry piercing eyes. Ignoring Karasu, Kakashi dashed towards her to draw her away... but she must have been using her own chakra to pack some steel behind her fists, because the moment he grabbed her shoulders, there was a mighty crack as the Rokubi's talon split and a piece the size of a his arm came away in her hands.

The Rokubi screamed, lifting its enormous clawed wing, ready to bring it smashing down on everyone – Sakura, Kakashi, and the baby. Sakura tried to dive to cover Enoki as simultaneously Kakashi tried to drag her and guide the bijuu's aim away from him. The result was that they both staggered and neither moved, and Kakashi was pretty sure they would have been smeared into the ground like unlucky flies if Karasu hadn't raised his hands and shouted one of his unintelligible orders.

The beast wavered, resisting. Karasu shouted again, and gradually it relented, moving its talons back over the baby with a low, thundering growl of resentment. In his arms, Sakura made a soft anguished sound as she looked on, still clutching the splinter of the Rokubi's claw.

Behind them, Karasu was panting. "Do you see now?" he asked. "You can't win, and you're threatening to ruin everything and kill everyone with your antics. You're really beginning to annoy me now."

Sakura went still in Kakashi's arms.

"Annoy?" she ground out.

"Hm?" Karasu leant out to peer around Kakashi. "Did I hear a little mouse squeak just then?"

Kakashi couldn't stop her. She'd whirled out of his arms and swung before anyone knew what was happening. Karasu's head snapped back with an audible crack as the splinter connected under his chin, and he staggered around, bemused.

"Annoyed, are you?" Sakura shouted, coming after him, raising her splinter again. For its weight and the chakra force she put into it, it may as well have been a lead pipe. "Is that so?!"

She crashed it down on his skull, sending Karasu to his knees, clutching the back of his head with a hiss of pain.

"You steal my baby and put him in danger, and _you're_ annoyed?!" Her shout was punctuated by another blow to the side of his head, knocking him completely to the ground. "You carve your name into my face and _you_ tell _me_ that _I'm _annoying _you?!"_

Sakura raised the claw one last time, ready to dash his brains across the ground. The other clan members were moving, shouting, running forward to stop her.

Kakashi got to her first, wrapping his arms around her middle to lift her backwards and away.

"No!" she raged, twisting and snarling. "Don't you dare stop me! He deserves it! He deserves to die! He _has_ to die!"

He deposited her sharply on the ground and turned to point threateningly at the oncoming clan members. They stopped, but perhaps only because Karasu was rolling onto his back, clutching a bleeding ear and swearing under his breath. It was clear he was ok.

"Bitch... burst my eardrum," he grunted, getting carefully to his feet with his head on one side. "Now that really is annoying."

Sakura seemed to visibly puff up and moved as if to clobber him again. Kakashi held out an arm to keep her back, though he was glad to see Karasu looked a little more wary of her this time. On his guard, Karasu wouldn't let her strike him again, and with the family backing him up they were hopelessly outnumbered. He looked at the Kyuubi, and at Karasu, and at Sakura, and he could see that she was gearing herself up to fight to the death.

There was simply no way out of this one. Sakura had to have known it was a hopeless suicide mission coming down here, but she hadn't been able to give up on her child, even for her own life.

"Promise me that Sakura will be safe," Kakashi told Karasu. "And you'll remove the tag from her face."

"Your last request?" he smirked.

Sakura seized his arm. "What are you doing?"

"We're not getting out of here, Sakura," he said quietly. "If I give myself up, you and the baby at least will be safe."

"No," she cried. "No, what are you _thinking_?! He's _not_ going to become a jinchuuriki! I won't allow it! You're not going to sacrifice yourself!"

"Listen to him, Sakura," Karasu chided her. "He knows what he's talking about. You two can keep resisting, but one word from me and this bijuu can crush the both of you, and then Enoki will just have to take his chances with a less reliable sacrifice. Whatever happens, the boy is mine, and whether or not you keep your life too is up to you."

"Kakashi," Sakura said in a low voice. "_Don't._"

"I don't know what else to do," he whispered.

"It's easy!" she barked, raising her fist. "I can smash the floor up. Your damn sealing jutsu can't work if all the seals are broken up, right?"

Karasu looked unperturbed. "Smash the seals and that monster will be free of my control," he said coolly. "It'll crush your baby in a second."

"He's bluffing..." Sakura ground out.

A muscle twitched in Kakashi's jaw. "No he's not, and if you had killed him just now it would have done the same."

Sakura's ire diminished a little, and she suddenly didn't look quite so keen to bludgeon Karasu's skull in. She looked around too as if just beginning to realise how hopeless their situation was. It was a deadly stalemate; Karasu was the only one keeping the Rokubi under control, and if that control slipped, Enoki would be the first to die. The only way out was to give in.

"Take me instead," Sakura said, stepping forward. "I'm just as good a sacrifice."

"Yes," Karasu exclaimed. "What a good idea! Let's take her instead; then I can keep Kakashi."

Kakashi grabbed her by the front of her vest and practically threw her behind him. She staggered and fell on her hip, and from the way the rock beneath her squelched like thick glue and swallowed up her hands, Kakashi had performed a jutsu to trap her there.

Karasu had burst out laughing. Kakashi looked down at her more apologetically. "Enoki will need you more than me. Don't be stupid."

"Stupid?! Who's being stupid here?" She tried to pull her hands free, but the ground had hardened to rock again. "Kakashi!"

"When this is over, you'll get him out of here. I know you will," he told her.

"Don't bet on it," Karasu intoned dryly.

"Kakashi," Sakura hissed, trying to bend him to her will by her authoritative tone alone. He was already turning his back on her. "Kakashi – _don't! _Kakashi!_"_

It was difficult to ignore her. To walk away from her and back to Karasu. It wasn't nobility or selflessness, he thought, but rather selfishness. Someone had to die here tonight, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Sakura. This was one thing he wouldn't be able to live with, having an abomination for a child and that abomination bought by the life of the woman he loved.

He didn't want that pain, and Sakura didn't deserve that fate. She had her life ahead of her and her place in Konoha among her friends and colleagues. With nothing left, Kakashi had nothing left to lose. His life was profoundly less valuable. Of everyone under that lake, he was the most expendable.

As he passed Karasu he paused. "You'll set her free," he said in a hard voice. It wasn't a question or even a negotiation.

His cousin gave a faint shrug of acceptance. "If that's what you want. I'm just glad you remembered where your priorities lie. I promise to tell him nice things about you when he's old enough."

That was too much.

Kakashi's right fist flashed out to give him a well-deserved smack. Karasu blocked it, and the left hook that came a moment later. He missed the third punch, however, and Kakashi was filled with a surge of thickly satisfaction to feel his fist plant in the most tender place of his unguarded stomach and see Karasu cough and curl up, wheezing.

"Sore... loser..." he gasped out.

"My priorities never changed," Kakashi snapped. "I'm not doing this for you or the clan. You've all shown your true colours tonight as far as I'm concerned, standing by passively to condemn a _baby_ to pain and torture. This isn't going to glorify the clan. I'm giving my life to him so that when the time comes, I hope that your 'creation' turns on you, and I'll have my revenge one way or another."

Some of the clan was looking uncomfortable now – most had been looking away for quite some time.

There was no laughter or amusement in Karasu's face now. Looking as if he'd bitten into sour lemon rind, he grabbed Kakashi's arm and steered him roughly back to the circle of seals where he'd originally been chained. He pushed him onto his knees, but there were no restraints this time. There was no escaping now.

"I really am sorry that this had to be you," Karasu said behind him, loud enough only for Kakashi to hear. "I _did_ like you. You were genuinely good fun to have around when you came down from your high horse to visit us, and you taught me a lot. Not just about jutsu but the way the world works. If you could have just been less set in your ways, it wouldn't have had to be this way. I would have gladly given the title of Karasu to you if you hadn't been so dangerous to us. But if the clan is to survive, this is the way it has to be. Enoki is our only hope."

"Enoki will be your end, Fumio," Kakashi said. "Jinchuuriki have brought more pain and destruction to their own keepers than they have to anyone else. Remember that, when this clan is being torn apart by every village and every faction that wants a piece of him."

"We'll see," Karasu shrugged blithely. "Ah... well, at least _I _will."

Still stuck in the ground, Sakura sat breathing hard and fast. "Kakashi?" she called uncertainly, like she still didn't believe what was happening. "Kakashi, you don't have to do this... please..."

"Say goodbye to her," Karasu said softly. "When it happens, it'll be quick and painless, I promise."

Kakashi squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't actually want to die, but there must have been some blissful chemical imbalance in his brain right then, no doubt left over from the cocktail of interrogation drugs he'd been fed over the last few days; an imbalance that left him feeling remarkably calm and serene at the thought of dying. It was just as well. If he was to die, he'd rather his last moments be somewhat peaceable.

Now that his remaining heartbeats were facing their final countdown and his breaths were numbered, every moment left was that much more precious. He opened his eyes to look at Sakura's anguished, searching face and felt a sharp pang of guilt for what he was going to have to put her through. How many more heartbeats did he have left now? Seventy? Fifty? Twenty? There was no time left now. He would tell her he loved her, as he should have done months ago, finally giving voice to something his heart had known all along and something he'd taken for granted as a given. He'd never realised until she had begged him to reassure her that Enoki had been created out of love that Sakura hadn't ever been as certain as he was of his own feelings.

There was no time left to show her now, so he would say it. It would be a nice way to end things – a little clichéd, perhaps, but if his last act was of love, that was more than he could hope for.

He opened his mouth to speak his last words.

"What the hell is that?"

That had been Karasu. Just then Kakashi noticed that Sakura's attention had wandered away from him, and now she was staring at the animal sitting on the ground a few feet from her knee. It had appeared so suddenly it had taken everyone a few moments to even notice it, but now they were all staring in quiet bemusement until the only sound in the chamber was the crackle of the Rokubi's feathers and the muffled sobs of the baby beneath its wing.

"Ahem," said Dokko, soaking up all the attention he was receiving as only a very conceited cat could. He held his white-tipped tail high, though its end was still blackened and singed in a strange sort of pattern. "I won't be staying long," he drawled. "I'm just here to deliver a message."

"Hurry away little kitty before that great bird eats you." Karasu barked dismissively.

But Dokko had not forgotten that this was the man who had thrown Nya against the wall and almost killed her, and his large yellow eyes glared malevolently at Karasu. "The message is for you."

Karasu smiled nastily and cocked his head. "What could you possibly have to say to me, you-"

"The Iwa incursion of Konoha has been defeated and the leaders captured. Konoha is aware of the Syndicate's involvement and Iwa knows of your treachery, and in fifteen seconds Uzumaki Naruto, the nine-tailed jinchuuriki, will activate the tag on my tail and arrive to kill each and every one of you. You have ten seconds left now, by the way. Nine... eight... seven..."

Karasu sucked in a sharp breath that had momentarily escaped him. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

"...six... five..."

"Go!" Karasu shouted to the clan members hanging back around the edges of the cavern. "Get out of here! Go now!"

"... four... three..."

A couple of the more advanced shinobi were disappearing immediately, using the clan's trademark body swap, and a dozen crows were now swooping and cackling above their heads. Others less blessed were backing towards the cavern's entrance, but too slowly. They didn't understand the immediate danger they were all in. Karasu glared around frantically and saw his carefully laid plan was now threatening to come undone.

He put his hands together and began to perform the final act of sealing that would end it all.

"...three... two..."

The marks on Dokko's tail flared bright white, and even more swiftly than the cat had appeared, Naruto appeared.

From the amphibian look of his eyes and the oily red of his eyelids, he'd arrived with all the power of his sage mode. He stood still for a moment, silently absorbing the place he'd been summoned to, until his amber gaze slid to Karasu.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted her relief echoing around the cavern. "Stop him!"

Karasu was backing away "Kill him!" he shouted at the bijuu. "Do it quickly!"

The bird screamed and shifted. It's clawed leg stretched out and slammed down with alarming speed on top of the blond boy. The floor shook and the ceiling rattled. Rocks and sediment dislodged and rained down all around them, and some of those Hatake trying to leave stumbled and fell.

But the Rokubi's clawed hand had never hit the ground. With his feet buried deeply in a cracked and shattered crater of rock, Naruto pushed up with a shout of effort, throwing the weight of the bijuu's leg off him. Before it could even think of attacking a second time, he'd shot away, running directly at Karasu, who kicked out defensively. Naruto evaded and threw a punch of his own. Karasu twisted to avoid as well and Naruto's fist missed, but the blow was so forceful that it still knocked him clean off his feet.

"Don't kill him!" Kakashi shouted desperately.

For his pains, Naruto turned and kicked Kakashi in the side of the head. Hard.

The next few minutes were just one great big foggy blur of shouting and screaming and crashes that shook the world. Only snatches of what was going on reached him. Kage bunshin swarming everywhere. The entrance of the cavern caved in, trapping everyone. Unconscious bodies fell one after another. A chunk of ceiling fell and smashed into the Rokubi, enraging it beyond all belief. Wind whistled through the air like a hurricane and then there was Sakura, and Sakura's lap beneath his head. Sakura stroking his hair and begging him to get up. He opened his eyes and saw her swimming ones gazing down at him,

"Idiot," she whispered tremulously. "Why did you try to sacrifice yourself?"

Try...?

Kakashi looked blearily around, at his clan desperately trying to fight off Naruto and one of his clones, but they were falling one by one. Kenzo took a rasengan to the chest. Michiko destroyed the bunshin with a stab of a stalagmite, but she was knocked into the wall by the real Naruto, taking her cousin Kaede with her. A burst of electricity lit the cavern, delivered by Karasu, but Naruto all but shrugged off the attack and continued. Of those who had fallen, groups were disappearing as fast as crows were appearing. Between every attack Karasu was transferring as many as he could out of there.

And in the brief moment Naruto was occupied with fending off a large wolf summon conjured by Biki, Karasu turned and smiled at Kakashi.

That was when Kakashi looked down at the ground around him and saw that the seals were moving.

Karasu had completed the jutsu. The sealing was already in progress.

"Get away from me," Kakashi said thickly struggling to sit up and push Sakura away, out of the ring of blood seals that were beginning to spin faster and faster around him. The ones around the Rokubi were beginning to move too. "Get away!"

"What-"

"You'll be sacrificed too!" Kakashi shouted, trying to push her out of the ring as it began to close in, growing tighter.

"No!" Sakura shouted back. "I won't let you do this!" She grabbed his arm with strength that still surprised him and pulled. But he refused to budge. Perhaps she didn't understand, or she wouldn't accept it... she would not let go of him. "Naruto! Help me! If we don't move him he'll die!"

With a blast of wind chakra, Naruto threw away the clan members swarming over him and raced over. He didn't ask questions. He seized Kakashi's other arm and with their combined strength they dragged him out of the ring of seals and over to a boulder near the edge of the cavern. Kakashi kicked and protested, almost incoherent in his desperation. "Don't – if I'm not – if someone doesn't – Enoki will die! He's going to die! It's going to take his life if it can't take mine!"

For the second time that night, Naruto hit him. Though the slap across the face was much more gentle by comparison, it still made him see stars for a moment. "Don't be in such a fucking rush to be martyr, Idiot-sensei!" Naruto yelled angrily. "If I get the baby out, there's no problem! Don't give up yet!"

He disappeared from their side and ran full pelt at the bijuu. It swooped its neck, snapping its beak at him as he drew near, but Naruto evaded and simply punched it away to grab the edge of its wing. Kakashi could see what he was trying to do. He was going to lift it up, snatch the baby from beneath its talons, and remove it from the seals. If there was no sacrifice or host, there would be no jinchuuriki. It was too much to hope...

But the wing was not shifting as easily as its leg had. It was stronger, and Naruto shook and shouted aloud as he tried to gather all the natural energy he could to shift the feathered limb while enduring the savage effects of its chakra. A black iron arrow suddenly sprouted from his shoulder.

The Hatake clan was still attacking.

"Oh, no they don't!" Sakura ground out ferociously. She left him, streaking across to the rock strewn ground to plant her fist in the man who had shot the arrow, roundhouse kicking him into someone else. Her baby's life was in grave danger right then, and she was a magnificent queen in her rage, moving more fluidly and decisively with all her current pain and handicaps than she ever could have at full health.

Kakashi pushed himself upright and looked to Naruto again. The boy was struggling. The bijuu's wing shuddered up and inch or two, before coming crashing down again. It was equal in strength to the Kyuubi container. Unthinkingly, Kakashi began to move forward to help.

A hand caught his shoulder. He looked back at Karasu.

"You'll be incinerated by its chakra," his cousin said.

"That's fine." He'd already prepared himself for death once tonight. He thought nothing of shaking off Karasu's hand and rushing on to Naruto's side. He performed the jutsu to harden his skin to the same strength of rock, for all the good it would do. The chakra was still frightening. Kakashi grabbed the wing joint alongside Naruto and tried to push.

"Idiot! You'll collapse!" Naruto shouted through his teeth.

"That's fine too!" Kakashi shouted back, pulling with all his might and wishing he had even half the strength of Sakura or Naruto. His skills had always lay in evasion and speed – planting hits and ducking blows and winning fights through sheer perseverance. He was not cut out for fighting monsters. But if nothing was done, his son would die.

That just couldn't happen.

Naruto made a strangled sound as he lurched the wing a little higher. "When I say 'go', you get under there and grab the kid! Then you both get the hell out of here!"

Kakashi nodded and prepared to throw himself underneath the bijuu's wing and into its talons. A small voice at the back of his head told him that this was, in no uncertain terms, suicide. His brain didn't listen.

"On the count of three," Naruto gasped. "One... two... th- _shit!"_

The bijuu's wing jerked again, throwing them both back. Its head twisted and came at them again. Kakashi rolled away sharply to avoid being snapped in half by its beak. Naruto kicked it away again.

But something strange was happening. The bijuu was going wild. It was livid. All its limbs quivered and jerked and its screams were growing louder and hoarser... and there was something hair-raisingly human about those screams. It was in pain. It was furious. It's voice raised to such a crescendo that everyone suddenly stopped fighting and began covering their ears as more debris began to snow from the ceiling.

Kakashi looked at the seals around the bijuu, and with a shock realised they were no longer there. They'd moved, winding so close to the beast itself that they were now winding around its very body. The words and symbols moved across its feathers and flesh like shadows, growing larger, growing darker. It was being swallowed up.

They were too late.

Sakura ran past him. She was going to throw herself beneath the thrashing monster to save her child. Kakashi caught her and held her tight, refusing to see her dead for something so futile. It was all too late. The bijuu was being sealed and with nothing else to take, it would take the host's life as its price. He was going to watch his baby die.

Kakashi was frozen in complete horror at the realisation. He knew this terrible feeling in his chest would never leave him. Not for the rest of his life. Not ever.

"No, no, no, _no, no, no,"_ Sakura whimpered, struggling in his arms, tears streaking down her cheeks. Her clean, unblemished cheeks. There was something odd about that. Just a moment ago he could have sworn that the words "Hatake Fumio" had adorned her face like an ugly tattoo... now there was nothing but dirt, sweat, and tears.

His brain, having ground to a halt in shock, couldn't make sense of this, or understand why he should care. His child was about to die and he was staring at Sakura's desperate face as if it was the first time he'd seen it. His thoughts lurched sluggishly back into motion, and suddenly he understood.

Kakashi whirled around, wide-eyed. "_Karasu!_"

There, in the very spot he'd knelt in his circle of sacrificial seals, stood Karasu. Or at least what was left of him.

Seals moved and crawled up his body, consuming him as they consumed the Rokubi. Though he still stood, it was clear from his glazed, staring eyes that life had already been torn from him.

Karasu had been right about one thing; it did happen quickly. In seconds the seals had spread out and swallowed him completely. A moment later and his body seemed to cave in on itself, crumbling inwards as if it had been filled with air that was now escaping, until all that was left was a bundle of clothes on the ground.

The same was happening to the Rokubi, though it refused to go as quietly. It screamed and thrashed wretchedly, and the seals swarming all over it began to burn hot and white. So bright. Sakura turned into him to shield her eyes, and Kakashi covered his own with an arm. The ground was shaking again. It began with a low tremor that built and built until it was a full on earthquake.

Although it was impossible to see, Kakashi could hear that more of the ceiling was giving away. He felt the spray of rock shrapnel as a particularly large rock exploded somewhere nearby, and he had the distinct feeling that the next chunk would land on them. He tried to cover Sakura with his body. She was already trying to cover his.

He'd never imagined that sealing a bijuu was a peaceful affair, but this was beyond his expectations. This was a show of howling screams and wind and blinding light, as if the end of the world had arrived at last. They could do nothing but crouch and tremble like scared little animals, waiting for it all to be over.

It faded. Oh so slowly it faded.

The roaring in their ears continued long after the whipping winds had died down and the sun spots danced in their eyes as the light dimmed to near darkness. Kakashi hadn't appreciated that the vast cavern had been lit entirely by the enormous firebird, and the only light source now was a tiny, palely glowing ring of white light some distance away.

It was just enough to see it was coming from a small bundle of silent blankets.

Sakura was the first to stand and stagger towards that light. Kakashi was close behind, though it was a near lethal trek through a dark minefield of broken rocks and cracks.

"He's not crying... I can't hear him," Sakura whispered hoarsely, dropping to her knees beside the blankets to push them aside and reveal the naked child inside them.

He was so still. Perfectly still. The ring of seals around his belly was the source of the light and it was rapidly fading. It disappeared completely when Sakura picked him up and held him against her. The last he saw was a glimpsed outline of her lost expression.

Kakashi turned away, unable to watch. He couldn't bear it.

Karasu's life hadn't been a good enough sacrifice, so of course the host's had been taken too... his blood had only been a quarter the same as Kakashi's... if only he'd been the one to stay in that ring. If only he hadn't let Sakura and Naruto drag him away. Enoki, his little son, might still be breathing right now. He was shaking. His throat was tight. He couldn't bear it. Why did life always turn out this way for him, offering him small tantalising glimpses of true happiness before ruthlessly, cruelly tearing it away again?

A soft hiccupping sob behind him made him turn slowly back to Sakura. He couldn't wallow in self-pity and despair right now. Sakura would need him. They'd need each other.

But the sob had not been Sakura's. It came again, rising in volume of harshness. It was nothing but the wail of a very, _very_ miserable baby. The strength in Kakashi's legs failed and he crashed onto his backside with a bewildered thump.

"It's ok... he's ok," he heard Sakura whispering through the darkness, as if she wasn't sure she believed it either. "Oh, no, shh, baby, it's ok now. I'm here... mommy's here... shhh..."

Soft blue light suddenly flooded towards them, courtesy of Naruto holding a spinning rasengan up in his hand that was just as good as any strong torch. It wasn't enough to light the whole cavern, but as he jogged closer it was enough to illuminate the brimming, unshed tears in Sakura's eyes and the naked, unhappy infant in her arms. It was also enough to see upon Enoki's small back were two marks, perfectly symmetrical, upon each tiny shoulder blade.

"They've all scarpered... cowards," Naruto said, bending down to peer uncertainly at the baby. "Is he alright?"

Somewhere in the chaos he'd lost his sage energy and was now looking almost normal. Kakashi looked at the whisker marks standing out on his cheeks and looked at the wing marks on his son's back.

They were the same now.

"Why did he do that?" Naruto asked bitterly. "That guy... he committed suicide. I saw him, he just stepped into the seals and died. It wasn't a mistake."

"That guy would rather die to have the last laugh than lose," Sakura said tightly.

But Kakashi knew she was wrong. Karasu had always put the clan before everything else – before pride or even his own self-interests. He'd fully convinced himself that his only role in life was to guide them back to the kind of supremacy and independence they'd held in the olden days, and to do this meant having a jinchuuriki leading the clan. All his hopes had rested on Enoki. After all those times he'd told Kakashi that the clan would never come into its own again until the proper heir became the clan leader again, that it _needed_ a true heir, not a substitute temporary keeper like himself... Kakashi could see how he might easily throw away his own life for what he believed was a more worthy leader.

It was so wasteful. So needless. Now his cousin was dead, his clan had scattered, and his son was, as far as the world was concerned, a monster.

How did this help anyone?

"Kakashi, don't," Sakura said, noticing something in his expression that he'd failed to hide. "He's alive. We're alive. That's all that matters. Don't look that way..."

It was hard to share her belief that they'd succeeded when they had also failed so catastrophically. Despite all their efforts, Karasu had thwarted them at the final turn. Their son was a jinchuuriki, one of the most reviled and hunted creatures in creation... and somehow Kakashi just couldn't put a smile on that.

Sakura watched him with dismay, suddenly shuffling closer. "Here. Hold him," she said, lifting Enoki with the greatest care towards him. "Look at him. He's your son... he's still your son."

It was the first time he'd held his own child. Those unhappy cries had faded a little back to whimpers and hiccups, but when he was deposited in Kakashi's arms, Enoki began to wail again. Kakashi didn't mind. There was irrepressible life in that sound, and warmth in the tiny body curled against his bare chest, and that smell... the smell of something so new and vulnerable and _familiar._

He tore his eyes away from the top of that fuzzy head and looked at Sakura who smiled wanly back at him. She still slouched on the ground, perhaps not having the energy to stand, and she'd reached her hand up to hold Naruto's tightly. His other student was looking on at him and the baby impassively through hooded eyes – a disapproving expression, Kakashi assumed, until Naruto caught his eye and smiled too. He probably felt he had punched and kicked Kakashi enough tonight.

He looked down at Enoki again and stroked the end of his small, perfectly formed nose, remembering the ghastly picture of a former host that Karasu had shown him. Abruptly, Enoki stopped crying to stare at him, and Kakashi couldn't help the soft laugh that escaped him... or the tear that rolled down his cheek.

* * *

Next Chapter: _A House Falls_


	45. A House Falls

**A/N: **So here we are! The final chapter at last! After approximately 4 billion words and even more headaches, we're finally here. To date this has turned out to be the longest story I have ever written BY FAR (and these last five chapters have been over 10,000 words each, so eat it, Nanowrimo, lol), and it's been a great learning experience for me to have not just gone 'fuck it' and drop it halfway through. I don't think I would have been so stoked to finish it if it wasn't for all the great feedback from you guys, so thank you so much for keeping me going to the very end. It's been surprising fun but really difficult to finish this, and I'll be glad to move onto less complex projects now. XD

Thank you for all your kind words guys, and thanks to all the readers who stuck through to the end. And if you only discovered this story this week and was able to read it all in one go, you're a lucky sod. :P

I hope you enjoy the last chapter.

* * *

**House of Crows**

Chapter Forty-Four: A House Falls

* * *

_Your smiles,_

_Well they make my day,_

_You don't know it yet,_

_But you're everything._

* * *

A little sweet. A little bitter. That was the taste in the air that night.

They sat beneath the densest trees on the shore of the lake, listening to the invisible rain hitting the surface of the water and the leaves of their shelter. In the dead of night, the ground trembled and rumbled. Pockets of air belched up through the lake and popped like boiling water.

The cavern was collapsing. Every evidence of what had taken place down there would be washed away and buried for good. The blood, the feathers, the remains of the 'sacrifice'... it was all disappearing.

Kakashi closed his eyes and covered them with an arm. Naruto had told them to sleep, to recover before daylight, but no one was sleeping tonight. Enoki cried for hours, in such pain no one so young should have to experience, and Sakura whispered to him quietly, soothing his agony with chakra and feeding him when it was time. Kakashi couldn't help. There was nothing he could do for his son.

None of them talked. Naruto made the occasional attempt to speak, pointing out an odd glow on the horizon of the south shore, like the sun was rising. Kakashi didn't care. Sakura was too tired to look. The weight of all that had happened lay heavily on them both. The reality of their son's new condition... it was not something that could be spoken of so casually. Neither of them knew what to say. They hardly knew what to think. Naruto just looked anxiously at both of them. He wanted to go back to Konoha and fetch the equipment for an emergency transport, but as of yet he wasn't willing to leave them for even a few minutes.

The glow in the south faded. The sun peeked over the mountains to the east and Enoki finally cried himself into exhaustion and slept. The respite was brief, but Sakura managed to finally doze, lying on the grass with the baby sleeping on her front. It should have a pleasant sight, but every time he looked at them he saw the shadow of that terrible bird hanging over them. He saw Karasu's dead, glazed eyes staring into nothing before his body had just blown away. It was so very different from the boy he'd used to know, always laughing and joking and making Kakashi feel like an uncool stiff by comparison. He'd thought they loved one another.

When had all that been crushed under the heal of murderous ambition...?

As the morning grew older, Enoki awakened, hungry again. Sakura dragged herself up to feed him, looking too bleak and tired to do anything but move automatically. She needed more sleep, but she wasn't going to get any out here.

"What's over there?" Naruto asked, pointing to the south shore of the lake. He'd been staring at it all night and all morning.

Kakashi shrugged. "The estate," he grunted.

His student glanced at him in slight alarm. "I think we should go investigate what that light was. Things may not be over just yet."

"I'll stay here," Sakura said, still nursing Enoki.

Naruto seemed to be doing his best not to look at her. "No, I think we should stick together. Neither of you are strong enough right now if the Syndicate is still in the area."

A scowl settled on Sakura's face, but she didn't argue. She finished feeding him and got to her feet.

"I can take him," Kakashi said.

"I'm fine," she said shortly, moving past him.

Perhaps it was important to her not to let go of her child just yet? Or maybe that now Enoki had finally stopped crying she didn't want to risk disturbing him by handing him over to someone else? It seemed most likely that she was just in a bad mood. Kakashi understood that. He wasn't feeling particularly upbeat right then either, especially not when Naruto wanted them all to trek a mile around the lake to see a house Kakashi wished never see again as long as he lived.

To his astonishment, his wish was more or less granted.

* * *

"This is... wow... what the hell happened here?"

Naruto kicked aside a gently steaming plank of wood that had perhaps once been part of a wall, and stared around the courtyard. When he'd been told of the Zuru Estate and how much it was worth he'd been expecting something quite impressive. A multi-levelled mansion, perhaps. A hundred year old zen garden, even. Hundreds of servants, probably.

And while standing in the charred remains of a mansion that had been so stripped and gutted by fire that it was nothing more than a skeleton of black beams, ash and rubble _was_ impressive - especially with the way it steamed and smoked in the early morning mist – it had not, however, been expected.

Lost, Naruto turned to look at his teammates. "Was it always like this?"

Kakashi was looking rather suspiciously at Sakura beside him, who in turn was fussing over an invisible speck of dirt on Enoki's cheek. The baby was as soundly asleep as anyone would be after such an exhausting ordeal, and though it was natural for a new mother to be besotted and fussy over a child, particularly one who had been implanted with a terrifyingly powerful mythic beast, she was clearly doing her to best not to notice where they were standing.

"Sakura..."

She'd gone miraculously deaf too.

"What did you do?" Kakashi asked loudly.

Going a little pink in the cheeks, Sakura shot the two men an annoyed look. "Why are you both looking at me?"

"Because you couldn't look _more_ suspicious right now if you were carrying a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of matches," Kakashi rebuked, running a hand through his hair. "This must have been the light you saw, Naruto."

"It's not my fault no one bothered to put it out..." Sakura said sulkily.

"Remind me not to piss you off," said Kakashi flatly.

"Like that's ever stopped you."

Naruto thumbed his nose and looked away, sensing an argument was about to ensue between them. "I hope no one was inside," he said, looking around at all the black and grey debris that could have been anything in a former life.

"It's abandoned. No one was inside," Kakashi said.

"How'd you know?" Sakura asked him dubiously, sounding a little worried.

"I'd smell it. It'd smell something like burnt pork if-"

"Oh, don't! Not in front of the baby," she hissed, covering Enoki's delicate little ears.

"That sounds like something _I _normally say," Kakashi retorted.

By now Naruto was beginning to feel less angry with himself for never having noticed a relationship between these two. They were like a cat and a dog, quick to bicker and growl, so much so that it was hard to believe they were the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy. He hadn't witnessed much affection between them, at least not any more than usual, though he supposed it was understandable that they were both short on temper and low on spirits at the moment. Their kid's life had been changed forever, before it had even begun. As tempting as it was to point to himself and say 'it's not so bad being this _cool'_ they knew just as well as he did that his life had been one hell of an uphill trek... and he was one of the lucky ones. Most other jinchuuriki were killed prematurely, hunted by extremists like Akatsuki, or driven insane till they were nothing but unstable killing machines who couldn't be trusted near others. It wasn't easy. It certainly wasn't a life that Naruto would have wished on anyone, and though Kakashi and Sakura were doing their best to pretend otherwise, they were struggling to cope with their situation. That neither had even spoken of what had happened to their son since emerging from the lake was evidence enough that this was a shock too deep for words.

There was nothing left on this estate. Nothing but rubble and remains. Naruto squinted around at the derelict buildings and sighed. No one had stuck around either. There was no sign that the Hatake clan had stuck around after their leader's demise and if there had been any serving staff they were long gone. The estate was well and truly dead.

He looked back over his shoulder at Kakashi and Sakura, bracing himself to bear witness to another frosty exchange. But in the few moments he'd turned his back to check out the damage to the estate, Kakashi had sat down on the stone steps leading up to what was left of the main house, and Sakura had sat on the step beneath him, between his legs. They were both looking at Enoki.

It was Kakashi's hand on Sakura's neck, half entwined with her hair, that caught Naruto's attention the most. And it bothered him. For a few seconds he had to temper the visceral urge to storm over there and kick Kakashi in the face again. Then he saw Sakura smile up at him and... well, the urge to neuter Kakashi didn't quite disappear, but it was at least easier to ignore. Sakura saw something in their sensei. She probably needed her eyesight checked, but Naruto knew when something wasn't his business. Perhaps, months ago, he would have had something to say about them and their relationship, but the time for reproach had long passed. They had a child now. They were, for better or worse, a family.

He walked back over to them, and that hand on Sakura's neck disappeared rather quickly as Kakashi turned to look at him. At the moment he realised his sensei was deliberately refraining from affection with Sakura in his presence, probably out of a perfectly rational fear of physical violence. In a way, that reassured him a little. He didn't like to think Kakashi was _unaffectionate_ towards Sakura. But at the same time it made him wonder if it was such a good idea to do what he was about to do.

"I'm going back to Konoha," he said, lifting a marked kunai out of his pouch to toss it to Kakashi. "Keep that with you. I'll be back in about half an hour with supplies for a site-to-site summon to get you two – uh – _three_ out of here."

The kunai was marked with the seals for Hiraishin. As long as it wasn't destroyed, Naruto could travel between it and the one in his apartment freely. Kakashi weighed it in his hand and tucked it away. "No worries."

"Will you two be ok on your own?"

Naruto realised as soon as he said it that he wasn't really worried about their safety, more about what Kakashi would feel free to do with Sakura in his absence. They'd probably do something horrible... like kiss.

And Kakashi had the kind of face that always seemed to say '_I know exactly what you're thinking'_. He just looked at Naruto with a faint smile until the boy flushed and turned to look at Enoki whose little plump arms were waving about, trying to catch Sakura's hair. "Tsunade-sama will be glad to hear you're all ok," he said, before activating Hiraishin and disappearing with hardly a whisper of air.

Although how glad she'd be to hear of a six-tailed jinchuuriki went unsaid.

* * *

Sakura's smile gradually faded after Naruto left. Leaning back into Kakashi's chest, she carefully untangled a lock of hair from Enoki's sticky and surprisingly strong fist. It had been growing out for over a year now and was going to have to cut off once she got back if Enoki kept grabbing for it like this. "He's going to come back with another emergency transport," she said aloud.

"I heard," Kakashi responded lightly.

"You still have a chance to leave before he arrives," she said quietly.

Kakashi's arms came down to wrap loosely around her shoulders. She felt his warm breath near her ear, ruffling through her hair. "Is that what you want me to do?"

"No – but – yes." She bit her tongue. "You know what I mean. If you come back with us, they'll put you in prison for sure. You did just commit jailbreak."

"Says the arsonist," he murmured.

"Are you going to take this seriously?" she snapped. "This is your freedom, we're talking about."

"What's so free about being exiled and having nowhere to go?" He shrugged, resting his cheek against the top of her head as he offered his little finger for Enoki to hold. "I'd rather be near you and him, even if the nearest I can get is an underground cell underneath Konoha. You'd visit me wouldn't you?"

"No," said Sakura stubbornly.

"Really?" He didn't sound like he believed that. "Not even conjugal visits?"

Sakura elbowed him in the stomach. "Don't joke," she said, though she'd gone pink in the cheeks. "It's not funny."

"I can't think of anything less funny," he said. "They watch, you know, though two-way windows. It's sick. Especially the way your feet stick to the floor in the viewing room. Not that I know much about this, of course-"

Sakura stood abruptly and climbed the rest of the steps to stand in an agitated, self-conscious way at the top. "You're not being serious."

"No, you're not listening," he said, turning to look up at her. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You're being a noble prat again," she snapped at him. "Don't be so naive – there's nothing to be gained by resigning yourself to prison-"

"Except dignity. For us," Kakashi interrupted her shortly. "Do you realise what kind of situation we're in now? It was one thing to ask me to abandon you with a new baby, but it's a whole other matter to ask that I abandon you with a monster."

"Kakashi!" Sakura admonished. "How can you say that?! Is that what you think Naruto is too? A monster?"

"The monster's inside him, and it's inside Enoki too," he said. "You can't ignore that. Eventually, whether it's five years from now, or ten, or fifteen, we're going to see that bijuu again. And where am I going to be when that happens? Hiding in a hole in some other country, I think not."

Sakura turned away from him entirely, bouncing Enoki lightly in her arms as if trying to comfort him though the boy was perfectly relaxed. As usual, Kakashi could tell when she was misdirecting her anger on him. She was scared. That's all there was to it.

"Do you think so little of me that you'd expect me to jump at the chance to leave you with this burden?" he asked. "I thought I proved to you before that I'm willing to pay whatever price I have to."

"I just want to make sure you can never accuse me of not giving you a choice," she said touchily, casting an arched glance at him over her shoulder. "And don't ever call him a monster again. I'll kill you. Seriously."

He was quite convinced she meant it. "I'm sorry," he said, and they both lapsed into silence for a moment, because they both knew the word 'monster' was something this boy would hear a lot for the rest of his life.

"He's our son," Sakura said eventually. "That's all there is to it."

"I know," he said quietly, "but you're not the only one who's scared. And you don't know how sorry I am that I won't be able to be there for you. That I'll hardly get to see him..."

Sakura's feet stomped down the steps again, until she was suddenly sitting next to him, leaning against him heavily. "You really are scared, aren't you?" she guessed.

He held up his hand which was quaking slightly as he tried to hold it steady. "Look at that," he said.

"That's just because you're on drugs," she pointed out.

"Well, you don't have to say it like that... Enoki will get the wrong idea about me," he sighed, reaching an arm around her shoulders to feel her settle against his side.

This should have been a joyful time for them, but it was all marred by everything that would come next. He enjoyed having Sakura close, feeling her warmth against his side, but how could he really enjoy it when he knew this could be the last time he would be this close to her for months – possibly even years? And how could he enjoy looking down at the baby in her arms and guessing which of his features came from him and which came from her, when all he saw was what the bijuu had given him? In the full light of day, it was apparent that the changes were more than just a pair of oddly shaped birthmarks on his back. His eyes, which had been a dark blue in the picture he'd been given, were now a strange pale yellow. It wasn't a human colour. Any hope that his son might pass for an ordinary boy would be dashed as soon as anyone got a good like at his eyes.

Enoki, oblivious to the fears of his parents gave a squeaky yawn and decided to doze. Despite everything, Sakura still laughed softly, delighted in her new son whatever tragedy had befallen him. Kakashi smiled as well, confident at least that jinchuuriki or not, their boy was easily the cutest in Konoha.

"I don't know how I'm going to manage without you," Sakura whispered, not wanting to disturb Enoki.

It sounded like something Kakashi felt like saying too. "You'll have each other," he said heavily.

"No money though, and no home." She sighed. "That hasn't changed at least."

Kakashi opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it. Whatever he was about to say, he changed his mind and instead said, "If you're short on money... you do realise we're sitting in one of the richest estates in the rain country, which has been utterly abandoned and now stands unguarded."

Sakura sat very still.

"I'm sure a lot of that wealth went up in the fire," he went on conversationally, "But who knows _what_ kind of riches might have survived and are just hiding under piles of ash, waiting to be – ah - rescued?"

"Are you suggesting we... that we _pillage, _Kakashi?" she said quietly.

"Do you have some strong moral objection to this that you didn't have to arson, Sakura?" he asked lightly.

Her mouth quirked to one side as she considered. "You know, they never did _pay_ me for my work here..."

He looked at the steaming ruins. "Oh, they paid."

"Well... there might be a few things..." Sakura stood up and wandered away up the steps again. "No point letting it go to waste, I suppose..."

Sakura's naughty side didn't take much tempting to come out and play. Kakashi smiled weakly to himself and followed her inside the gutted mansion, climbing easily over the mounds of fallen beams, roof tiles, and charred wall panels.

"Priceless Manchu dynasty vase... broken. Tapestry depicting the battle of Sengu Valley... burned." Sakura toed through a heap of ash. "I'm beginning to feel a little bad about setting fire to all of this."

Kakashi kicked open something that looked auspiciously like a jewellery box, but all that lay inside were a couple of plastic rings. It could have been safe to say that in the process of leaving, the servants really had stripped the estate of everything valuable that would fit in their pockets.

In fact the only thing that wasn't smashed, burned, or stolen, was the great stone chair where Lord Zuru had once held audience; the same one Karasu had been using when Kakashi had arrived here. It sat protruding from the wreckage like, and if it wasn't for that chair it would have been impossible to tell they were standing in what had once been the estate's grandest meeting room. Kakashi sat in it experimentally, putting his feet up on the remains of a chimney.

Sakura sat on the wide armrest. "Worth a couple of million at least," she said, running a finger over the patterns of engraved black stone. "But I don't think we can carry it."

"I'm sure we can. Just give Enoki to me and you can-"

"Jerk," she laughed lightly. "You won't get any visits, conjugal or otherwise, if you keep that up."

"Oh?" he looked at her with growing interest, but Sakura's smile was quickly fading, her eyes on something in the distance. Following her gaze, Kakashi quickly realised what she was looking at. "Not quite as deserted as I thought," he murmured lightly. "I spy a few rats malingering..."

Through the steam and smoke were emerging new shapes. Kakashi heard the debris crunching under their feet and as they got closer he began to pick out who they were - upper house members and branch house members. The clan had regrouped, it seemed, after the night's events. But who was leading them now?

Midori, with two small twinned shadows walking in her wake, seemed to move with the most authority ahead of the rest. She stopped a few metres away from the stone chair. Sakura tensed beside him. They were almost certainly surrounded right now.

"We heard from the ones who were last to leave the lake cavern," Midori began, "That Karasu is dead?"

Kakashi nodded curtly.

"Then," she said, sinking to one knee, "_you_ are Karasu now."

And one by one they all mirrored her, going down on one knee with a fist to the floor in the traditional shinobi demonstration of submission. It was how Konoha nin bowed to the Hokage – expect for Kakashi who bowed only to Sakura.

Not all of them went down easily. Some of the upper house members took several seconds before they could force their limbs to submit. Kakashi caught Shushui shooting him a particularly nasty glare as he turned his face to the ground.

Although Sakura's mouth was hanging open in shock, Kakashi didn't feel even the faintest flicker of surprise by this turn of events. He dragged his gaze back to Midori. "Last night you were all willing to watch me die."

"We were complying with Karasu's orders," she answered coolly. "We'll fully comply with your orders too, whatever they are."

"That's interesting," Kakashi said, and out of the corner of his eye he felt Sakura glance sharply at him. "Shushui?"

The man flinched. "Karasu-sama?"

"Take off your jacket and shirt and hand them to me," Kakashi spread a hand over his bare chest. "It's a chilly morning."

There was nothing 'chilly' about a morning in the rainforest. Shushui visibly wrestled with some internal argument before he got to his feet and began to unzip his grey vest and shrug out of his black shirt. He silently handed both to Kakashi, a muscle twitching rapidly in his jaw the whole time, and then retreated to stare at the ground.

Kakashi slipped on the shirt and vest, each a little too big for his frame, and audibly sniffed his sleeve. "Hmm," he hummed with grim displeasure "Now take off your pants."

"Karasu-sama!" Midori ground out. "Please be mature."

"Why are you calling me that?" he asked. "I don't remember agreeing to be Karasu. I'd rather be the king of a landfill than leader of this clan, even though I imagine there would be very little difference. In fact you could say I'd rather be imprisoned by my own Hokage than have to look at any one of your sickly faces again."

"You'd... you'd rather be made a prisoner by your village than be the head of your own clan?" Midori said, bemused. "I don't believe that-"

"Who cares!" Shushui snapped. "He's not fit anyway! His father was exiled because he bred with an outsider, and he's no different!"

"My father walked away from the clan voluntary before he was 'exiled'," Kakashi pointed out. "But you're right, yes, I'm no different than him."

"He's the heir," Midori hissed. "Karasu made it clear that the line of accession was to move back Sakumo's side after his death."

Shushui spluttered. "Yes, but Karasu-"

"Wasn't expecting me to be alive when that happened, right?" Kakashi guessed. "Just how long was he planning to kill me? Can any of you answer me that? I imagine he's been planning to kill me since he heard I was going to have a child, but I wonder if any of you can say how long he wanted me dead?"

None of them could, apparently. The ones most likely to have been confided in like Midori and Shushui just looked at each other, obviously searching each other's faces for some sign that they had been more trusted by Karasu. Kakashi almost laughed. Karasu always kept everyone around him in the dark and had them competing vainly for trust he'd never given. Perhaps one day he had planned for Enoki to be the person he entrusted with all his knowledge and all his plans, but instead he had died before he'd intended... and the syndicate had died with him, leaving all his underlings scrabbling around for some sign of how to carry out a final will he'd never imparted.

Karasu _had_ made it clear that he'd wanted the line of accession to jump to Kakashi's line, but he'd also wanted Kakashi dead. No wonder the little sheep were confused. They simultaneously sought his leadership and spat in his face.

"Perhaps a week ago I may have been tempted by your offer," Kakashi said. "Most of you have been good friends to me over the years. But that was before you showed your willingness to knife me in the back on the whim of your leader." Now Kakashi really did laugh. "I did my best to shelter you all from the wrath of the villages that Karasu was inciting, but then you bit the hand that fed you. So what am I to do? You abominated my child. _What_ am I to do?"

The twins behind Midori crowded a little closer together.

"Um!" A hand in the crowd lifted hesitantly. "I'd just like to say that I wasn't here last night... I got hit in the head during training yesterday and I was with Uncle Eno. I only found out about this bijuu business after the fire... I was busy rescuing the last of the servants."

"Even Sano, who can't dodge a punch to save his life, has more moral fibre than the lot of you put together. Aren't any of you ashamed?" Kakashi beseeched.

"Ashamed of what?" Shushui grunted. "If you won't be Karasu, _fine_. We'll be taking the true heir – the one Karasu gave his life for!"

"Oi," Midori called warningly, but Shushui ignored her. He'd fixed his sights on the baby in Sakura's arms and was storming towards them.

Kakashi remained relaxed in his chair.

Unnerved by his passivity, Shushui paused, having expected him to rise and block him. But after deciding Kakashi had no intention of moving to stop him, he surged forward the last few steps to grab Sakura's arm. He didn't anticipate that the arm would lash out first to strike him in the chest with roughly one hundred times the usual strength he could have expected in a girl her size.

Shushui rocketed away, sliding and rolling through ash until he hit one of the remaining support beams. It wobbled, threatening to collapse, but there was no need. Shushui laid in the rubble, gasping and clutching at his chest.

Sakura glared around at anyone else who would think of pulling the same stunt, and Kakashi slid his eye back to Midori. "And I think that clears that up," he said. "You're not having our son."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" she demanded.

"I don't care. You're not my problem anymore," Kakashi said with a shrug. "Go back to the cloud country and find the rest of the clan to warn them... because when I go back to Konoha I'm going to tell them everything. All your names, all our safe houses, where _your_ children are... I'll tell them everything, so you all better start running now. And if any of you come near me or my family again, I'll kill you."

"_We're_ your family," Midori told him.

He shook his head. "Since last night, I have no family except for these two," he said, putting a hand over Sakura's.

The girl was tense. After a certain threat like that perhaps she expected his relatives to turn on him and try to kill him. It would be a logical choice for mercenaries who had identities to protect. But gradually they began to leave, one by one. They disappeared as they had arrived, almost silently back into the steam and the smoke like ghosts.

Midori stayed the longest. "Do you remember," she said, "when we all went out to the grille in Otafuku Gai? Me, you, Karasu, Reika, and the others? You joked that you'd mess up one day and get exiled like your old man?"

Kakashi met her gaze unflinchingly. "I remember," he said evenly.

"It wasn't you who messed up. It was us." She began to turn and slip away over the rubble. "You won't see us again, Kakashi, I promise you."

Sakura looked down at the hand Kakashi was holding, noticing his knuckles had turned white. He didn't relax until the last figure disappeared from sight. His voice and face could appear totally unaffected, but Sakura knew he wasn't as indifferent as he pretended to be. She knew nothing of his life before, or his relationship to his family. Hearing that he'd done something as mundane as go out to dinner with a lunatic like Karasu and a psycho like Reika... it made her realise that the way she saw these people was not the same way he did. They'd not just been family to him, but friends too.

She squeezed his hand back. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Mm?" he was still staring off into the mist.

"I'm sorry you've lost them," she said.

It took him a long time to drag his mind back to respond. "I lost them a long time ago, I think," he said thoughtfully. "But I still have my family, don't I? The only family that matters."

She smiled faintly and leaned down to press her lips softly to his. "Naruto will be back soon," she reminded him.

"I know," he sighed. "Let's just stay here until he comes."

At his urging, Sakura slipped onto his lap and laid her head against his shoulder as his arms went around her. Kakashi looked down at the sleeping baby and realised that everything he had ever needed or wanted, and everything he'd been searching for vainly in Karasu and Reika and the rest of his relatives... it was all right here in his arms.

_So tell her,_ a little voice whispered in the back of his head.

"U-um," he began a little hesitantly. "You know I love you, right?"

Sakura snorted. "That's so cute. You stuttered."

Damn. "I'm on drugs, remember?"

"What, you love me because you're on drugs?" Her mouth drew a sceptical line.

"No, I mean-"

"I'm teasing," she said with a cheeky smile, and using the hand that wasn't employed in cradling Enoki she reached up and pulled his head down for another kiss, sweeter and longer than the last.

And that was how Naruto found them when he flashed into being before them holding four enormous scrolls and an exasperated expression on his face. "I _knew_ it."

* * *

Sakura supposed it was all to be expected, but it didn't make it any easier to watch Kakashi be led away by ANBU for the second and final time. She didn't protest. If Kakashi had made his peace with his decision, then she would try to do the same. They'd arrived in the administration building of all places, in the Hokage's very own office, and quite a crowd was present to watch Kakashi marched away to the intelligence division, though not everyone understood why. As far as most people knew, going by Naruto's rushed explanation to the Hokage when he'd suddenly arrived looking for scrolls, Hatake Kakashi had just completed an emergency mission to rescue a baby which was rumoured to be his, and not only had he succeeded but he'd also single-handedly brought the Syndicate down at the same time.

There were more than a few cheers and applause as he passed.

It would be a few days more at least until the rest of the news began filtering down through the grapevines and the praise would shrivel. It would be news that Hatake Kakashi had actually been a member of the Syndicate himself. That he hadn't brought it down at all. That the baby rumoured to be his was not only his but a bijuu too. And that he hadn't been on an emergency mission to rescue it, but had in fact been the one to kidnap it after escaping imprisonment and was the one who had turned it into a monster. That he himself was the leader of the syndicate.

Such was the nature of rumours.

Sakura had been prepared for this. She had even been prepared for her shishou to take one pitying look at the baby in her arms and announce that he needed to be isolated and his seal examined before he could mix with the rest of society.

So Sakura's first days back in Konoha had been a cold, lonely ordeal, confined to a bed in an overcrowded hospital, waiting for news of her baby or her lover. Naruto kept her company. Ino visited once but seemed to have trouble meeting her eye when the subject turned to Kakashi, and Tenzou dropped by with a few other jonin to apologise profusely for Kakashi ever existing, but there was restoration work to be done and a myriad of injured and sick people to attend to. For the most part Sakura was resigned to lie in bed, aching and miserable, missing Enoki with a physical intensity that rivalled her emotional need.

Each day was agonisingly slow, made worse by the fact that tomorrow was a big unknown. Would she have Enoki back tomorrow? Would she hear news finally of Kakashi's sentencing? Would they decide she was fit enough to leave and turf her onto the street? Would she spend another night in this place, alone, or would she be sleeping on Naruto's couch tomorrow night?

She cried more often than she was proud of. The nurses, kindly, tried to remind her that her hormones would still be unbalanced this soon after giving birth, but she knew the truth was that she was just plain miserable. If Enoki's seal was found to be corrupted, and Kakashi was sentenced for execution, just what would she have left to live for anyway?

"It'll be ok, Sakura-chan," Naruto tried to reassure her, but the words were getting thinner and weaker every time he said them. He tried to distract her instead by asking questions about Kakashi. When had it started? Why had it started? What the hell did she see in that old fart anyway? Didn't she know he was a pervert? But, wait, since when did Kakashi smoke?

Sakura still got the unsubtle hint that Naruto was at odds with their relationship, but the more he pestered her about it, the more he seemed to be taking it in his stride.

"I saw Kakashi today," he told her on the third day. "In the detention centre, you know? He's spilling his guts down there."

"Not literally, I hope," Sakura mumbled.

"No, I mean he's telling them everything. They have him writing this confession right, with Ino, and it's like forty pages long and his writing is _tiny_. Him and Ino are a bit weird at the moment actually. She's down there to verify everything he's giving them, but it's like they're not even in the same room, they're trying to ignore each other. It's like when Neji caught Tenten in the public showers and they didn't look at each other for a week. Yeah."

"How is he?"

"I think he's over it by now. Tenten forgave him eventually, but ask him about it when he's drunk and he'll tell you all about the mole on her-"

"Kakashi! I meant Kakashi!"

Naruto folded his arms and looked thoughtful. "He's... not happy. Looks kind of rough actually. He keeps asking about you and Enoki and I can't tell him much. I'm not allowed. I don't even know _what_ to tell him about Enoki... you haven't heard anything, right?"

Sakura shook her head stiffly. "Tsunade's keeping it top secret. Even from me."

He winced. "She means well."

"Does she?" she asked listlessly. "I just want him back. But I don't really know what to do once I have him back. Where am I supposed to go? I think I'll have to raise him on my own, but... do jinchuuriki need special care or something?"

"I don't think so," Naruto said with a shrug. "Just the usual care."

"Do you think we'll all be banned from talking about it... from telling him?" she whispered.

Naruto stilled. "If she tries to, I'll talk her out of it."

Sakura glanced at him uncertainly.

"One of the worst things they did to me was keep it quiet from me," he explained sadly. "I know they meant well, but when I found out all of a sudden the way I did from someone who was trying to kill me, it was horrible. It was easier after that though, because at least then I understood why everyone hated me. Not knowing was just the worst."

Sakura went to sleep with a heavy mind that night, listening to the sounds of the hospital and the sound of some other baby crying in some other room for some other mother. Although she knew the pitch was all wrong to be Enoki, each sound stabbed through her, reminding her painfully of what she was missing. Where was he at that very moment? Was he crying for her? Was he hungry? Was he cold? Was he being poked and prodded and probed by a team of uncaring seal experts who saw him as a _thing_ instead of a human? Were they hurting him?

When Shizune came into her room on the fourth morning with a pile of folded clothes in her arms it was almost a relief. Being discharged was at least a change of pace, bringing an end to this feeling of being suspended in water with no idea what was up or down, even if she didn't have anywhere to go at this point.

"Tsunade wants to see you in her office before you go," Shizune told her as she helped her dress. Sakura didn't know where the clothes had come from, but they fit better than the clothes she owned. For this cool early March weather she'd been given a hooded sweater and the uniform black pants that every chunin, jonin, and their mother wore. She had warmed things to wear, but like everything else she owned they'd been auctioned off with the rest of her house. Was it still up for sale? Had someone bid for it by now and moved in?

Shizune accompanied her through the hospital to the entrance, and even though Sakura had expected a few stares, she didn't know people could be _this_ indiscreet. Some of her medic colleagues even stopped to watch her go past like she was some kind of ghost floating past, and she thanked her lucky stars that at least she wasn't as famous as someone like Kakashi, and once she stepped out the hospital doors, not so many people knew her name, and even fewer knew her face. She turned right.

"Where are you going?" Shizune called, pointing to the left. "The administration office is this way."

"I don't want to see Tsunade," Sakura said, feeling lethargic in her apathy towards her shishou. The woman had kept her in the dark for four days, not visiting her once or sending any news of her child, and if she was going to summon Sakura then Sakura felt like being contrary. "I'm going to go to the bank... see if anyone's made a deposit on my house to put me in the black. Who knows? Maybe I'll have enough to rent a flat?"

Shizune looked surprised. "You should see Tsunade first," she said, and shot a furtive look around them. They _were_ being watched, as it happened, by a couple of smoking medics standing by the entrance, so all Shizune could do was widen her eyes meaningfully at Sakura.

Who suddenly understood. "Oh," she said, and hurried off at once in the direction of the Hokage's tower.

She gave no thought to all the fresh stares she received as she left Shizune behind and all but ran up the steps of the administrating building. A couple of chunin she'd worked with in the past tried to stop her and congratulate her on destroying the syndicate – and also her new baby – but Sakura ducked around them, not stopping once in her beeline to the door of Tsunade's office. She didn't paused to knock either.

Tsunade looked up from the basket on her desk the moment the door burst open, a blue rattle pausing in her hand.

Sakura could only stand there, going weak with relief.

"During our intense investigation," Tsunade said, settling down into her chair with a cough, "we have discovered he likes the blue rattle better than the green one."

Sakura shut the door against any curious noses that would inevitably try to poke their way inside. "Is he...?"

"Safe? Yes. As far as we can tell," Tsunade said, spreading her hands over an astonishing amount of paperwork on her desk. "Come and take a look."

Sakura approached the desk, but she had eyes only for the gurgling boy in the basket. She couldn't have cared less for all the graphs and diagrams and references that Tsunade would show her.

"The seal is Iwa in origin," the Hokage said. "It's not as complicated as the one given to Naruto and they have a history of wearing out after about thirty years so it will need replacing eventually. I worry that where the Yondaime ensured there was as little bleed-through between the Kyuubi's soul and Naruto's soul as possible, that may not be the case here. But for now I can't say it's unsafe. Whoever did this knew what he was doing."

Karasu was just lucky he was dead.

"The council wanted to do more invasive tests, but I managed to convince them it was unnecessary," Tsunade went on. "It's hard to tell whether they're angry we have another jinchuuriki on our hands, or ecstatic that he may potentially be another Naruto. We're going to be under a lot of international pressure because of this, once it leaks to other countries that we have a second jinchuuriki, which I'm certain it already has. There will be sanctions against us for sure... the treaty may even get torn up and we'll enter another weapons race of villages trying to exploit the power of the tailed beasts all over again. If we didn't have Naruto, I'd be very worried we would be attacked directly. As it is I'm sure it won't be long before other villages or independent factions like the Syndicate start to plot Enoki's abduction."

Sakura eased her son out of the basket and smiled at his little round face peeking out from beneath an enormous cap. She'd worried he wouldn't know her or recognise he when she finally held him again, but the extra enthusiastic waggling of his arms when he saw her and the way he immediately latched onto a lock of her hair reassured her. It was hard to believe that a child so small could cause so much trouble just by _existing. _But talk of broken international treaties and economic sanctions made very little difference to Sakura. What could she do? She hadn't chosen this for her son and she couldn't undo what Karasu had done. She was more concerned about the fact that there could be groups planning to take him away again... although right then she was besotted with the little blue pyjama suit someone had dressed him in. Blue was nice, but Sakura made a mental note to buy him some pink outfits to match his hair.

"Did you hear me?" Tsunade asked.

"He's in trouble, I got it," Sakura said softly, playing with her son's tiny hand.

"Not just from outsiders, but perhaps from people within this village too," her shishou said. "We're fortunate that this village hasn't had any direct run-ins with the Rokubi in the past, but some of the people living here are former refugees from settlements in the mountains of the grass country that was attacked twenty years ago by the last Rokubi jinchuuriki. It wouldn't be wise to underestimate grudges. Naruto had a number of assassination attempts made on him when he was a child by those who lost people they loved in the Kyuubi's attack. It's a wonder he survived to adulthood, to be honest, living on his own for so long."

"But it won't be like that for Enoki," Sakura said sharply. "He has me."

"Yes." Tsunade nodded with a faint smile. "And he'll have Naruto too. I've told the brat that he can expect to start training him in a few years. I'll make sure the same mistakes aren't repeated again. I'm sure Enoki will know love all his life, and I've been told by Naruto that there should be no ban on speaking about his condition. Something about _treating_ it like a shameful thing will make it _become_ a shameful thing. I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the news spreading; it would be nice if everyone including the other countries remained ignorant to the situation, but maybe he's right. There's certainly nothing to be gained by keeping his own condition from him at the very least. When the time is right, you should try to tell him what he is."

Tell him what he is? Sakura blinked, having not really thought that far ahead. She supposed there was lots of things she would have to teach him of the course of his life... how to hold a spoon, how to read, how to brush his teeth, and then there would be stuff about the birds and the bees and then one day he'd have a girlfriend and Sakura would probably hate her...

She held Enoki a little tighter. It was a lot to think about when she wasn't even sure what tomorrow would bring.

Tsunade rolled her shoulders. "Now," she said, "we don't know much about the sealing jutsu used, so there may be unforeseen difficulties. If you notice the seal has changed or parts of it are fading, you must alert me immediately. If the marks on his back get darker or bigger or change in any other way, you must alert me immediately. If his eyes change, or you think his behaviour has changed, or you have _any_ concern whatsoever, like-"

"Like I come home one day and find a giant flaming bird in the place my baby should be?"

"Alert me immediately, yes," Tsunade said, for all appearances deadly serious. "Have the nurses explained to you about feeding him? Burping him? Bathing him?"

"Ah – no."

"I'll send Hinata to you later. She has several younger siblings, so I think she'd probably give you better advice than I could. Have you applied for maternity leave yet?"

"Ah – no, I-"

"I've already taken the liberty," said Tsunade, handing her a folded form that had already been filled out. "You'll be on paid leave for the next six months, though you can ask for an extension if need be. Oh – here's your advance. It's based on the amount you've earned for the past six months."

Tsunade handed her another slip of paper, and when Sakura caught sight of all the zeroes, she very nearly dropped the baby in shock. "Whoa..." she whispered. "But – I've not – that's way more than I've earned in the past six months-"

"Is it?" her shishou interrupted with an indifferent shrug. "Speaking of which, here's your paycheque for your last mission too."

Sakura stared at the second slip of paper she was handed. "But that wasn't the pre-arranged payment-"

"Are you actually _complaining_?" Tsunade snapped. "You have enough money in your hands to buy-"

"To buy an apartment outright, I know!" Sakura cried. "I just don't understand why."

"Because you were sent off on a simple reconnaissance and ended up infiltrating the heart of the syndicate which eventually led to its destruction. The mission was upgraded in your absence to S-class, and your payment reflects that. But I can always downgrade it again if you're not happy with-"

"No – it's fine! It's good." Sakura stepped back, before Tsunade could snatch it away again. "I'm only surprised."

"Why? This isn't a hand out, Sakura, you've earned this money. And I think you'll need it because children aren't cheap, you know. You have to feed them, clothe them, educate them, and buy them toys and beds and that's after you spend a small fortune baby-proofing your house, because when they start crawling – there's so many ways kids can fry themselves these days."

"I..." Sakura began bemusedly. "I think I probably ought to actually _get_ a house before I can think of baby-proofing it."

"What?" Tsunade flashed her an annoyed look. "What are you on about? You have a house."

"Yeah... but I lost it remember? It went up for auction," she said.

"And was sold, if I recall," Tsunade agreed. "And your debt was settled."

Sold? A small part of Sakura wanted to wither and die, despite the good news that her days of debt were over. Any hope of recovering her childhood home that had belonged to the women of her family for generations had flown straight out the window into the nearest sewer. Sakura waited for Tsunade to get it, but when her shishou only continued looking at her as if _she_ was the stupid one, she burst out. "I don't actually have a spare house! That was the only one I had!"

"Didn't Kakashi tell you?" Tsunade demanded. "You mean to tell me you've been with him for close to six months and he never at any point told you?"

"Told me what?" Sakura was close to throttling the other woman.

"Kakashi _bought_ your house," Tsunade said, slapping her hand down on some kind of ledger beneath all the papers on Enoki. "It's right here in his account details they dragged up a few days ago during the investigation. The third of October, last year, he placed a bid on your house about three weeks after you'd left for your mission to the rain country, and he won it. He's not exactly rich either – that was more than two thirds the money in his account – and the house is still in your name. Hell, if I'd known he'd done this I might not have been so confused as to who this boy's father was for so long. Such an act of stupidity can only be done out of love... or fear of incredible blackmail. I hadn't decided which yet, but you're telling me he never told you he did this?"

Sakura stared at her shishou, mouth hanging open. Kakashi had _never_ told her. Had he forgotten? She'd mentioned enough times to him that she was effectively homeless, and yet he'd never felt the need to alleviate her concern? _Why_ had he done that?

"I'm not kidding about the expense," Tsunade said, throwing open the ledger for her to see. "That was a very selfless thing he did. He has no money left now... did he think you would pay him back?"

If he had, he would've mentioned it to her. "Or maybe he knew his days of freedom were numbered," Sakura said quietly.

Tsunade dropped her head into her hand with a sigh and stared at all the papers on her desk. It made Sakura silently appreciate that between the two of them, she and Kakashi and generated an awful lot of work and headache for this woman.

"How is Kakashi?" Sakura asked after a heavy silence.

"Peachy," Tsunade said ambiguously, though her smile seemed amused rather than sardonic. "He was sentenced last night."

Sakura inhaled sharply, though she tried not to show her shock. Ice cold needles prickles her scalp as she imagined the worst. _Execution_, she thought. _Definitely execution. _"What... um...?"

"Five years," Tsunade said shortly.

"Until... he's executed?" Sakura quivered.

Tsunade closed her eyes patiently. "Until he's _released_, Sakura," she sighed. "The council read his confession over, in which he denied far more than he confessed, I must point out, and recommended a sentence. I recommended another sentence. We wrangled it out a little, but I managed to get it down to five years on account of genuine remorse, a new family situation, and having used his position in the Syndicate to sabotage some of the operations against us, and if he'd assisted in any damage against us, he did so unwittingly. And based on your testimony and Naruto's he also assisted in the Syndicate's inevitable demise. Some radicals might call him a hero... but not the council, since there is some evidence that Kakashi's misinformation was directly responsible for the assassination of half the previous council members. That, along with the other consequences of his deception, cannot go unpunished."

Sakura swallowed. "I understand," she muttered. Five years wasn't too bad, she guessed, considering all that had happened. Except five years was still a _long_ time, and Enoki would be spending his most important developmental years without a father. Another five years and she would be twenty-five going on twenty-six and that still seemed like a lifetime away to her.

"Will I get to see him?" she asked Tsunade. "With Enoki?"

Tsunade smiled widely. "Of course. As often as you like, I suspect," she said. "His confinement is not going to be especially strict."

"That's good, I guess," Sakura said quietly, looking at Enoki sadly. This was going to be a hard five years for everyone.

"I suggest you go home and relax," said Tsunade, eyeing the faint bags of worry under Sakura's eyes and her pale complexion. "I think time to yourself and your baby is just what you need, and if you do need anything else I hope you realise you have a lot of friends who are anxious to help you."

"Thank you, but I think I'll have to learn to be self-sufficient," Sakura said, remembering how it was only last year that she'd been living virtually on pennies, and had frequently mooched off friends like Ino to get by day to day. That couldn't go on. With a small child relying on her now, she had to grow up and take responsibility for herself, and now that Kakashi had cleared her debt she knew she had a fighting chance of succeeding. Perhaps even one day she would be able to pay him back.

"Sakura, raising a child is extremely hard," Tsunade told her evenly. "It's not something anyone can do alone. It's not something anyone _should_ do alone..."

He shishou trailed off, eyes drifting over the paperwork on her desk. She heaved a sigh and then lifted a smile to Sakura. "The basket is on the house. It'll do until you get your hands on a crib."

"I have one," Sakura said, smiling back. "There's one that my mother used for me in the attic. All my old blankets and clothes are up there."

"All set then," Tsunade said, winking. "Take care, Sakura."

"Thank you, shishou." She placed Enoki back in his Moses basket bowed deeply to her teacher, who swivelled away in her chair rubbing at some suspicious eyelash that had gotten in her eye.

On her way back down the stairs, the fact that other people were trying hard not to stare at her made it all the more obvious what kind of scrutiny she was under. Most of them gave her a wide berth, and she didn't think they would be doing that if she hadn't been carrying a jinchuuriki child. Shizune met her in the foyer with a smile. "Do you want me to walk you home?"

"No, it's ok," Sakura said, keen to be alone with her thoughts and her child and her old home. She didn't want the hassle of maintaining light-hearted conversation and reassuring Shizune that she was fine. She wanted time to be herself for once.

She walked the well-trodden path homeward, smiling down at Enoki who appeared to be fascinated by everything he could see from his basket – which was mostly Sakura and the sky and the occasional friendly older woman who, without knowing any better, stopped to compliment her on such a beautiful baby "But what a _strange_ eye colour..."

It could be weeks before word fully made the rounds that the yellow-eyed boy was the village's latest jinchuuriki and strangers on the street would begin shying away from such an unknown quantity. For now Sakura was just glad that her walk home was absent of judgemental stares, and with each step her heart was growing lighter. She was going _home_. This house she thought she'd lost months ago was still the place she came back to, and a sense of rightness and belonging that had been missing for so long as she'd been ferried from place to place in the rain country was finally reasserting itself.

This was what home felt like. Walking the same road from work, seeing the same houses, and the same gardens and the same dog sitting outside the corner shop, enduring fusses and strokes from passing children. The same peeling paint on the door of number 6, and the same rusted bicycle that had been stuffed between two garages for as long as she could remember. The old life that she'd been afraid of losing when she'd fled to the rain country was back in her hands, only now she was walking back to it with Enoki. And as she turned down her street and saw her familiar garden gate, her heart leapt, and she knew that she'd never been running away from this place because of a child, but because her home had abandoned her.

"Here it is," she said to Enoki as she pushed open the creaking gate that protested always at precisely the same 65 degree angle. "This is what you'll call _home_ from now on. No more hospital, no more probing, no more monsters. Just lots of blankets and cuddly toys from now on, ok?"

Enoki just looked sleepy, however.

Laughing softly, she reached for the spare key under the flowerpot on the porch – the flowers well and truly dead after a hot summer with no one to water them – and found it still there. The weeds needed cutting back, but there was plenty of time for that. She had six months off of work, after all.

"Home!" she exclaimed to no one in particular as she pushed open the door and drank in the familiar smell. It was slightly musty from months of disuse, but it was still warm and held the faintest tint of a scent that had always reminded her of her mother.

But there was something else here too.

"Welcome back."

Sakura straightened sharply, every muscle in her body going stiff with alarm. Had she just imagined that voice? She looked around the hall warily and even poked her head through the archway to the living room. A noise from the kitchen made her jump. It sounded like someone had just opened the fridge.

Either this was one awfully presumptuous burglar or...

Gripping the handles of Enoki's basket tightly, Sakura thumped down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. Lo and behold, there _was_ a man rummaging around in her fridge. Slowly he straightened and waved a bottle of spoiled milk at her.

"Kakashi..." she breathed.

"Hello, my love," he said cheerfully, but she quickly realised he wasn't addressing her. He moved around the table and scooped the sleepy baby out of his basket to lift him high and plant a kiss on his cheek. "Have the mean old people been poking holes in you? And dressing you in baby blue? How ghastly."

"Kakashi."

"You'd suit white much better – it would go with your hair."

"_Kakashi!_"

He recoiled from her slightly. "Or we could stick with blue, it's cool."

"Kakashi. _What_ are you doing here?" she hissed, looking him up and down. He was clean-shaven, his hair had been cut, and he was wearing fresh clothes that looked like his own. It was impossible. Her mind wouldn't accept it. Stress had driven her to hallucinations at long last and the only way her mind could cope with the idea of Kakashi being in prison for five years was to conjure his vision before her. Which Sakura refused to accept. She was _not_ so weak-minded that she'd go mad over a little loneliness.

"What do you mean?" he asked vacantly, patting Enoki lightly on the back.

He really was standing there, wasn't he?

"You're going to be in so much trouble! Five years was _lenient!_ What do you suppose they'll give you now after this stunt?" she demanded. Now her mind was beginning to catch up and rationalise what was happening. Of course he wasn't a delusion. Of course he was standing there. It was simply that he'd broken out of prison _again._ The idiot had only gone and screwed everything up. If he couldn't even serve _one_ day of his five year sentence-

"I was only cleaning out the fridge," he protested. "Your salad has grown legs and your rice pot is full of dead moths pretending to be rice grains, which is more alarming than it sounds. Not to mention your fish over there is looking devious and fat and surprisingly healthy for having gone six months without food – I'm thinking you had multiple fish in that tank when you left, right?"

"Kakashi!" she all but shouted. She was _definitely_ in no mood for jokes right now.

"You're not pleased to see me," he said flatly.

"Of course I'm pleased to – no, I'm damn well _not_ pleased to see you!" she corrected herself. "You're supposed to be in prison!"

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said, affecting an air of indignity that couldn't have wrung more false. "So you can have this guy all to yourself, huh? Well, Sakura, read it and _weep_."

He slid over a sheet of paper that had been laid out on the kitchen counter beside them and turned away to approach the outside door which he'd propped open before she'd arrived home. There he stood in the sunlight, looking out over the garden while still gently patting the baby that was now decidedly conked out against his chest.

Sakura picked up the paper and began to read.

* * *

_Conditions and Terms of Home Arrest Confinement_

_The defendant, Hatake Kakashi, having been fully advised of the alternatives, does hereby acknowledge and agree to the following terms and conditions of home arrest confinement:_

_

* * *

_

"House arrest?" she repeated loudly. "You're under house arrest?"

"That's what it says," Kakashi said.

"But – Tsunade-shishou told me that you were going down for five years."

"Yes." He glanced at her over his shoulder. "Here. I hope you don't mind, but since I technically did buy this house off you..."

She stared at him, open-mouthed, waiting for everyone to come jumping out from behind the curtains to yell "Psyche!", but perhaps this was perfectly real after all. "But... why?" she asked.

"Your place is bigger, and you have a TV. If I'm going to be confined for the next five years, might as well be somewhere comfortable."

"No – I mean, why did they put you under home confinement? Why not prison?"

"Is that what you would have preferred?" he asked, contriving to sound hurt. "Just say it, Sakura, seriously. You wanted me out of the picture. They put me here because I made a very stirring speech about your situation and reminded them that fatherless children are fifty percent more likely to become criminals. I think I made that up, but they believed the tears."

"So basically you cried until they let you go."

"Don't say it like that..." he sighed. He moved to gently lay Enoki back into his basket on the kitchen counter and turned to her, arms held slightly aloft. "And is that all I get? An interrogation? I manage to work out a way to inflict myself on you constantly for the next five years and you just stand there looking horrified?"

"I'm just... you're not..." She was struggling to remember how to speak. For days – weeks – _months_ in fact, she'd been mentally preparing herself for the inevitability of Kakashi's incarceration, of rearing a child alone, and trying not to miss him. "You're... free?"

"To a degree," he said, his arms still held out patiently. "You shouldn't read the small print. It's really depressing. They'll be tapping the phones to make sure I'm not talking to anyone nefarious and if I'm good I'll be allowed out for an hour each day under supervision, and we can only be visited by a list of pre-approved people which doesn't include felons apparently – and then there's this."

He pointed to his foot, and now that she looked, she noticed a plastic kind of bracelet looped around his ankle.

"It itches," he complained.

"Is that a monitoring device?" she deadpanned.

"ANBU standard. Pretty hard to fool too."

Sakura went on staring. His arms were still held open invitingly, waiting. "Sakura," he said. "We can be together... isn't that what you wanted? It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to be here for you and Enoki."

She stared.

"You'll never need a baby-sitter at least," he offered, his arms beginning to drop a little.

Suddenly she moved, throwing herself into him with tears standing out in her eyes. "Oh, thank goodness, I'm so glad," she gasped. "I thought you'd be locked up down in the dark and you'd be so lonely and I'd never get to see you! But – are you sure? About living with me?"

He smiled, holding her close and stroking his fingers over her soft cheek. "I should be asking you that. I kind of invited myself in... I hope you don't mind."

"I don't mind," she whispered quickly, pressing her face to his chest to breathe in that smell she loved so much. "I don't mind. I wanted this, always. Back in Amegakure when all we had was one hotel room... I knew that I wouldn't mind being with you like that. For good."

"For good," he repeated. "I like that."

They lapsed into a quietness that needed no words. Sakura simply held Kakashi tightly, soaking up his warm presence, comfortable that they had a lot of time ahead of them to say all the things they wanted to say. Likewise he enveloped her in his arms, and remembered that feeling of contentment he'd fleetingly had in the ruins of the Zuru estate, when he'd had everything he wanted in just the span of his two arms. He'd come so close to losing them both. Yet here they were, together at last... with a court order demanding it too.

Beside them, Enoki stirred in his basket, sucking his small fist.

"Thank you for buying my house back," she said at last. "Before some other bum bought it."

"What do you mean 'other'?"

"How much did it cost you?" she asked.

He leant down to whisper his bid in her ear, deliberately brushing his face against hers until their noses touched. It had such an effect on Sakura that she gazed at his mouth in a half-lidded gaze until she suddenly comprehended his words. "_How much?"_ she squeaked. "How insulting... it's worth much more than that."

"I'm sure," he said smoothly.

"I should pay you back," she began hesitantly. "I heard from Tsunade it put you seriously out of pocket."

He shrugged. "It's fine," he said. "Just letting me crash here is paying me back."

Sakura continued to look sceptical.

"You gave me a beautiful son who only sometimes looks like a mushroom. If I could put a monetary value on that, you'd definitely have paid me back two-fold-"

"Or was it you who gave me the beautiful son, in which case I owe you twice as much?"

He grimaced. "Look... I figure after everything you went through – that I put you though – it's the least I could have done for you," he said quietly.

"True..." she mused. "But you bought this place back in October, before you knew where I'd gone and before you came to the estate looking for me. So you must have done this because we'd fallen out after the Jonan mission. Was that you way of making it up to me after taking my virginity like that? I suppose it's nice to know my virginity was worth roughly half as much as my house."

He swallowed hard.

"I can think of a great way you can make _that_ up to me properly one day," she said, trying hard not to grin and blush. "Until then I think I should pay you back properly for the house. I don't like being in anyone's debt... not anymore."

"You can make it up to me by marrying me."

He said it before he could stop himself and Sakura blinked at him in acute shock. For a long tense minute she said nothing, although she made several attempts. At last she swallowed and looked down at his collar. "You mean... take your name?"

Damn. He should have known how Sakura felt about the Hatake name right now. "Or I could take yours," he said quickly, a little desperately.

She smiled softly at him, touched by his willingness to concede so easily to such a thing. But... "There's no need to rush," she said, running her finger over his chin and across his lower lip. "In a few months I'll go back to work, and soon I'll have enough money to pay you back for the house in full and then I'll feel like it's truly mine again. And then I'll marry you. If you still want me by then."

"Tell me the truth," he sighed. "It's because I'm a felon, isn't it? I thought all girls wanted the bad boys."

"Maybe a few months of being confined to this house with me will bore you to tears?" she suggested. "Then you might be glad you didn't marry me so soon."

"How could I be bored with you two around?" he asked, kissing the end of her nose. "No two days have ever been the same with you."

Sakura melted.

"But," he said, easing back from her, "if it'll put your mind at ease, I can wait until we're even. This house belonged to you and your mother and your grandmother; I understand. You don't want to feel bought out, and we have a lot of obstacles to work through before we can think of living a normal life."

"Mm," she hummed happily, not wanting to separate from him.

"The first being _who_ is going to change that baby."

"Huh?"

He tapped his nose. "This thing doesn't lie."

Sakura looked over at Enoki who had woken up to wiggle in a discontented sort of way. "But... I don't have any spare diapers."

"There's some here," he said, lifting some of the heaped blankets inside the basket. "Wipes too."

He offered them to Sakura, who just looked at them blankly.

"You've never changed a baby before, have you?" he guessed.

"You _have_?"

"On occasion," he said with a shrug. "I'll show you."

And quite easily he lifted Enoki onto the kitchen table, blankets and all and began to unbutton his little blue suit. Sakura sat in a nearby chair and watched, intrigued, as Kakashi unwrapped the used diaper – handed it to _her_, of course – and set about wiping Enoki clean, all the while distracting the infant by making clucking noises and pulling faces. Enoki looked about as intrigued as Sakura.

"You're an idiot, you know that, right?" she observed.

Kakashi looked up from his process in fastening the new diaper. "Why?"

"For waiting this long to become a dad," she said. "After all that 'I don't care' attitude you had when I was pregnant, you're head over heels for him. It's obviously natural to you..."

"And not to you?" he asked, detecting the slightly melancholy edge to her tone.

"I don't think I can claim to be a natural mom. Not after all I let happen to him..." she sighed. She'd already messed up about as badly as it was humanly possible for a parent to mess up... insofar as losing her baby to a crazy crime lord who'd implanted a bijuu into him. The harm of this would never be undone. She just hoped that Enoki didn't grow up to resent her for it...

"Once we get the hang of it, we'll be ok," Kakashi told her. "We can't beat ourselves up for what's been done. We can only look forwards... because that's the only way Enoki will be looking as he grows up."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"You said it, not me," he reminded her. "He's our son. He's happy, he's healthy, and that's all that matters. He's ours, right from the tip of his tiddly toes to tips of his white hair."

Sakura smiled more widely. "Pink."

"Sorry?"

"His hair's pink."

Kakashi looked at Enoki, then at her, then back again. "No it's not. It's clearly white. You take after your daddy, don't you, sweetheart?"

"No, it's pink," Sakura said more firmly.

"That's just the reflection off his scalp."

"No, it's _definitely_ pink."

It was an argument that would never be resolved.

* * *

Next Chapter: _The Epilogue (Oh, yes indeed) _


	46. Epilogue

**A/N: **To celebrate the end of the story, check out my profile for some new fanart by some really talented artists : Slinkymilinky, Leona101, and lovesharingankakashi. I can't think of a better way to end it all, so thanks guys. ;D

* * *

**House of Crows**

Epilogue: Four Years On

* * *

_We are not our sorrows, _

_We are not our scars._

_We are only human._

_This is what we are._

* * *

There was little that could beat a brilliantly sunny day in the middle of summer. Except, perhaps, a more moderately sunny day, when the grass wasn't so dried out and prickly against one's back, and ten minutes outdoors didn't leave the skin feeling so prickly and hot.

Kakashi scratched the spreading red blush on his forearm and turned the page of his book. It was a murder mystery, full of eccentric and deeply suspicious characters, and though he was only on the second chapter he already knew who had done it and how. He sighed, his focus momentarily fleeing from him as he stared at the words on the page without taking in their meaning. He missed Icha Icha. But like with the cigarettes and the alcohol, they were no longer part of his life, locked away instead in Sakura's hospital locker (along with his testicles, most of his 'friends' would joke). Of course the only reason he hadn't yet grabbed a trusty crowbar and liberated them yet was because Sakura was probably right. When living in a house with a creature whose reading age was about four times its actual age and whose favourite word was 'Why?' precautions against the persistently curious were needed, especially after the last incident at school when Iruka-sensei had stormed over to the house to ask why a three year old was quoting phrases like 'vertical meat pistol' in the middle of math.

A splash from the river below made him briefly squint towards the water with a frown before returning back to his book, with no knowledge of what had happened for the last three pages. He sighed and flipped backward, determined to force himself into paying attention this time.

"Da~ddy!" sang a small voice from the river.

"Ye~ah?" Kakashi grunted, realising with annoyance that he'd have to flip back to the beginning of the chapter because he had no idea who this Captain Marguerite person was.

"Look at me~e!"

"I'm looking."

"You're not looking!"

Kakashi glanced up again at the small boy standing in the middle of the river. Or rather, _on_ it. "Very nice," he called, and then dragged his eye back to his book. He might have been more impressed if this hadn't been roughly the fortieth time Enoki had shown off his water-walking abilities. When exactly was the novelty supposed to wear off?

It being an unusually hot weekend, they weren't the only ones out by the river that afternoon. Another family with slightly older children were having a picnic further up the sloping grassy bank, and all along the river's edge there were casual anglers, fishing with rods and bait under the shade of parasols. Kakashi glanced at those men in envy. With no shade along this bank, those parasols were looking awfully clever right now.

Enoki had noticed the men too, and besides bouncing up and down on the rippling surface of the water, he was occasionally pouncing upon any passing fish that swam beneath him. So far he hadn't had much luck, but failure wasn't something to seemed to perturb him. Kakashi guessed the fun was not so much in catching the fish but in getting wet and generally behaving in ways that would get grown-ups committed.

There were also others along this river, but they were barely noticeable unless you were looking for them; like the 'off-duty' ninja lying on the grass a few hundred yards away, apparently snoozing in the sun, or the kunoichi sitting on the bench by the path above him, filling in a crossword on the daily paper… or the man sitting beside her, staring at the back of Kakashi's head. Occasionally the off-duty nin and the kunoichi would glance at him too, but they did so with more subtlety and less interest. The staring guy was new. Given a few weeks, he'd get as bored with this assignment as the other two and lose intensity. Kakashi was getting good at ignoring their presence, and though he could live without three sets of eyes following him around every day whenever he left the house, he knew it was a small price to pay. There were people in his position who weren't so fortunate… who got locked up in prison or confined to their house with no second chances and certainly no concessions.

In fact, if it hadn't been for Enoki, Kakashi was sure the rules of his house arrest would be much more restrictive. At the moment he could go where he pleased, whenever he pleased, and although he had to put up with constant surveillance, his life was almost normal.

Almost.

Because there was also some suspicion in the back of his mind that the escorts who shadowed his every movement also followed his son to school, as if _he_ was the one who needed watching. There wasn't much he could do about it other than hope his son was too young to notice, or understand, or think to ask 'Why?'

The sound of two children giggling distracted him and he looked down towards the edge of the river to see Enoki standing among the reeds, showing something to another girl about the same age – probably frogspawn – and both were highly delighted by whatever it was. Kakashi smirked. Unlike his father, perhaps Enoki would be quite the ladies' man when he was older. He certainly had a certain guileless charm that attracted other children like flies, and Kakashi suspected he got this off his mother. Despite insisting she'd spent most of her childhood wishing she was as popular as her friend Ino and living in said girl's shadow, Sakura had always had admirers, whether she noticed it or not.

"_Mayu!_"

The little girl gasped and turned guiltily at the sound of her name. Kakashi sat up, suddenly alert to the woman hurrying down the bank towards the children, arm outstretched. She grabbed her daughter's arm as if she was grabbing her out of a fire, yanking her away without looking once at Enoki, scolding her dismayed daughter with every step.

"I've told you a hundred times," Kakashi heard her hissing to her child. "You _do not_ play with that boy! He's not right. If I see you going near him again I'll tell your father!"

She suddenly met Kakashi's gaze and paled. She said nothing more as she manhandled her daughter up to the path, but he had no doubt that once they were out of ear-shot the mother would start berating the child again, filling her with fear and, ultimately, prejudice.

Further up the bank, the young family finally seemed to have noticed him and Enoki, and though their picnic wasn't finished and the children were complaining loudly that they hadn't had their desert, the parents were packing up their things and moving away, carefully not looking at him.

Kakashi looked at Enoki, and something squeezed his heart unpleasantly. He'd seen the boy have tantrums before, seen him dissolve into tears because his favourite teddy had lost its ear, and seen him so ill sometimes that it scared him to death. But nothing quite hurt him as the expression on his face did now. Because this wasn't a fleeting tantrum, or tears at bedtime, or a sickness that would be over in a week. This misery was something that would continue for the rest of his life.

Enoki stared after the girl and her mother like an abandoned dog. He was more confused than anything else. Right now he was perhaps too young to realise why the mother had dragged her daughter away so abruptly as if she was in danger, but he was at the age now when he was beginning to understand that this wasn't just how people acted… it was just how they acted around him. He was old enough to wonder if there was something wrong with him.

"Enoki-chan," Kakashi called softly, distracting the boy. He lifted his hand to beckon him over, and Enoki came… although he walked without the energy he usually managed to inject into even the most mundane movement.

Once he was within reach, Kakashi snatched him up, pulling him onto his lap and cradling his back. "Why, Mr. Haruno," he said, affecting an impressed tone. "What do we have here?"

A trout lay gently wiggling in the boy's hands, but Enoki only held it loosely and stared down at it blankly, neither proud nor boasting. Just staring. Kakashi picked it up and pretended to measure it. "That's definitely the biggest fish I've seen come out of that river. Maybe we should consider your vocation as a fisherman?"

"What's a 'vo-cation?" Enoki asked slowly.

"Like a job," said Kakashi.

"Like what Mommy has?"

"Like what Mommy has," Kakashi agreed flatly.

"Do you have a job?" asked Enoki, beginning to forget his sombreness.

Although Kakashi was the one who now felt a little sombre. He supposed the correct answer was 'no, I lost my job when you were born'. But with another year of good behaviour not even the council could come up with any more excuses to stop him returning to work. "My job," Kakashi said lightly, "is to look after you. It's full-time, gets lousy pay, but the perks are endless."

Enoki probably wasn't quite sure what he meant, but he giggled anyway. Kakashi squeezed his arm around him affectionately and turned his attention back to the fish he was holding. "Is this your way of saying you want fish for dinner, huh?"

"Yep!"

"But your mom's coming home tonight. I don't think just the one fish is going to feed us all," he told the boy. "Maybe we should catch some more."

The boy was wiggling now with barely suppressed excitement. "Daddy?"

Well, if _that_ wasn't the most mischievous tone of voice he'd ever heard. "Mm?"

"Do that thing."

"What thing?"

"That thing!"

"What thing?"

"THAT thing!" Enoki cheered. "Where you go _pshhh _and _zzzzpppt_ and then everything."

"Ah," said Kakashi, suddenly understanding. "That thing."

"Yeah!"

"I probably shouldn't," he sighed, but when Enoki's uplifted face began to wobble, he knew he had little choice. "Alright. Hold my book."

"Yeeeeeaaah!"

Kakashi stood and conscientiously took off his shoes before heading down to the river's edge, Enoki bobbing along beside him. "Stay back," he warned the boy lightly, as he waded into the reedy shallows and surveyed the green waters. Up and down the bank, fishermen who had seen them playing by this river more than once were looking on reproachfully, some of them reeling back in their lines with angry mutters.

Looking back to make sure Enoki was still standing on the grass, Kakashi gathered a little charka to his bare feet and let it loose through the water with a jolt in its pure element form.

Despite how Enoki described it, there was no sound and there was no visible sign than anything had happened at all… not until dozens of pale bellies began bobbing to the surface like apples and the river turned into a veritable harvest of stunned fish. If any of the fishermen were shouting their objections, Kakashi feigned deafness.

"Hurry up," he told Enoki. "Grab two before they recover. Big ones."

"'Kay!" cried Enoki, toddling off across the water to grab what he could, and when he came back he was holding his shirt like a basket, carrying two flapping trout.

"Alright," Kakashi said, tossing the smaller fish into his son's arms. "Time to head back?"

Enoki met this suggestion with as much enthusiasm as he had for being offered chocolate and a bouncy castle of his choice. It didn't take much to excite this kid – or indeed, _over_excite him – and Kakashi couldn't help but smile and follow as Enoki barrelled up the slope and began marching homeward. And in turn the ninja dozing in the sun got up and seemed to decide to head the same way, along with the crossword-solving kunoichi and the staring stalker. Enoki didn't notice any of them, however, busy as he was singing a very out of tune song about fishies on dishies that Sakura had used to sing for him when he couldn't even talk. It didn't seem that long ago. It was astonishing how quickly children could go from crawling to catching fish and slaughtering classic lullabies, and yet Kakashi felt he himself had aged more in the last four years than he had in the last twenty years of his adult life. Not in the sense that he'd grown tired and wrinkly… but having responsibilities and obligations he'd once thought were best avoided by sane adults had changed him. He wasn't quite the same man he'd been a couple of years ago; he was someone different now.

Someone he liked better.

He knew sometime soon he would return to his work and start the uphill battle to reclaim dignity and respect, and that was a day he looked forward to. But it would be a bittersweet day, he thought. Because going back to missions would mean leaving Enoki behind…

Walking along the park's path, it took him a moment to notice that Enoki had stopped singing. He turned around and saw that his son had stopped dead in his tracks and was looking across the grassy field to their right. Kakashi followed his gaze and noted they were passing the playground. Several children were out there playing on the swings and slides and clambering up and down an elaborate climbing frame under the watchful eye of their parents.

Kakashi felt a lump rise in his throat and jerked his gaze back to the path to begin walking again. "Come on, Enoki," he said shortly, trying to sound to a spoil-sport. He hoped his son blamed _him_ for being too strict a parent, and thought that this was the reason he wasn't allowed to join in with the others in the playground… rather than because the moment he did, the other children would leave one-by-one, herded away by parents or because that was just what you did when you saw Haruno Enoki coming your way.

But Enoki was not a stupid child. He knew why he couldn't play and his energy escaped him once more, turning him into a small plodding drone who stared at the ground, no longer interested in singing or trying to avoid stepping on cracks or jumping from one of his father's footsteps to the next.

Kakashi stopped and Enoki bumped into his legs and almost dropped his cargo of fish.

"You alright?" he asked his son.

"Yeh…" Enoki said glumly and pretty unconvincingly.

"Oh, dear." Kakashi stooped down and picked him up, lifting him onto his hip. Almost at once Enoki's head crashed into his shoulder and he began sniffing and making heart-breaking little whimpering sounds. "C'mon. Your mom's coming home tonight. You don't want her to see you all sad, do you?"

But not even the mention of his mother's return – the very reason Kakashi had woken up that morning to his son using his stomach as a trampoline – managed to cheer him up. In fact he only seemed to want to cry all the harder.

"It's not the end of the world," he tried instead.

But since Enoki had never been under the impression it _was_ ending, this didn't seem to help much either. Kakashi patted his back futilely and remembered that murmuring comforting nothings was an art that only Sakura seemed to have mastered. Usually some sort of bribery was required if Kakashi was to get his son to stop crying, but at the moment he didn't have any sweeties on hand. Just fish.

"Why do they hate me?" Enoki cried.

"No one hates you," Kakashi said stolidly.

"They do! They do!" the little boy insisted. "I don't know what I did…"

Kakashi sighed patiently, glancing over his shoulder at his three milling escorts further inside the park. This wasn't exactly the time or place where he'd wanted to have this kind of discussion, but he didn't have the heart to brush off his son's misery till later. After all, this wasn't just a typical childhood tantrum.

"No one hates you," he repeated, stroking his son's short, soft hair, "they're just scared."

"Of what?" sniffled Enoki.

A long time ago, they'd begged Naruto for advice in this very matter, and Kakashi recalled it very well. _Don't lie to him._ Knowing the reason for his social exclusion didn't make it stop hurting, but being kept in the dark about his own nature had inadvertently been the worst part of the abuse. His father and others had meant well when they'd arranged for Naruto to remain in ignorant bliss for most of his young life, but even if children weren't told explicitly what was wrong with Naruto, they had assumed their parents behaviour around him and copied each other until it made no difference whether they knew about the Kyuubi or not. They acted just as cruel.

Now the same thing was happening to Enoki, and although Kakashi understood the temptation to hide everything from his son and try to preserve some semblance of normality for him, it was hopeless. There had already been times when he noticed his son staring off into space in the middle of a game or during dinner, becoming deaf to his parents' voices as if he was listening to something else. Some other voice.

"You know that…thing inside you?" Kakashi said carefully. "The thing that talks to you sometimes?"

Enoki lifted his head and gave his father a tearful nod of grave understanding. "The Rocky-be?"

"Yes, well… other people don't… they don't have that inside of them."

Enoki blinked as he contemplated this, thinking so hard he forgot to cry. "No one?" he asked meekly. "But… Naruto-sensei-"

"Is the only other person like you," Kakashi said quickly. Trust the little bugger to find the one exception. "You're both very special. And other people… they don't understand what it's like, so they're just a little scared, and maybe even a little jealous that they don't have a son as handsome and clever as you."

Enoki thought very hard about this. "People love Naruto-sensei… but they don't like me."

This was all too true. Kakashi had been hoping that Naruto had set a fine example to Konoha that jinchuuriki were capable of being trustworthy, loyal, and friendly people, but as time had gone on it was clear that Naruto was seen only as an aberration and the old prejudices were still buried deep in the village's consciousness. Naruto had worked hard to earn the trust and confidence of the villagers to reach the point he had, and Enoki wouldn't get an easy ride on his coattails. He would have to work just as hard, face the same obstacles and cruelties, and in the end, he might fail anyway.

"Things will be hard for you, but you're brave, aren't you?"

"Yes!" said Enoki resolutely.

"And you're smart and fast and strong?"

"Yes!"

"You'll have to work twice as hard as anyone else to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, but at the end of the day you'll be twice as brilliant as any of those losers. Right?"

"Right!"

"You know your father loves you, don't you? And your mother too? We'll always love you."

Enoki was, delightfully, still too young to be embarrassed about that. "Yes," he chirped happily.

"Kiss?"

Enoki leaned over and planted a noisy kiss on Kakashi's cheek and giggled when Kakashi did his best to wipe it off on his sleeve. "Not so much spit next time, sweetheart…" he teased. "Now as great as these fish are, I think we better get home and get washed and changed because we don't exactly smell like roses, do they?"

"Don't need a bath."

"Mommy won't hug you if you don't have a bath."

"Mommy says you're not allowed to use 'emotional black mail' on me."

"She didn't say anything about the sharingan though, right?"

"Ah!"

* * *

As soon as she saw the village gates, Sakura broke into a jog. She would have run all the way home if her team had let her, and her leader even had the nerve to laugh at her obvious impatience as she trotted up to the sign-in booth and scribbled her name and mission designation down on the gate-keeper's logbook.

"In a rush?" chortled her leader as she hopped from foot to foot, signing her details.

"I said I'd be back by six," Sakura said, glancing at her watch. "Dammit… it's already quarter past."

In her rush, she tossed the pen to her team leader and took off at a half-run through the streets, trying hard not to jostle the box in her arms too much. Technically she should be heading over to the administration tower to report to the Hokage, but she figured Naruto would understand if she left her debrief until tomorrow. there was also a little matter that she was supposed to drop some forms off at the hospital too, and though Tsunade was less understanding, Sakura would rather face her wrath than the wrath of a four year old who'd suffered a broken promise.

She dashed past the front of a closing flower shop.

"Sakura!" Ino shouted, in the process of taking in a bunch of orchids indoors. "You're back! How about a drink?"

"Can't!" Sakura said rushing on without pause. "I'm late!"

"What else is new?" Ino called back at her sarcastically.

Recognising her street, Sakura felt a rush of longing. She'd only been gone for a week, and she'd spent long periods of time away from home (four years ago she'd been away for a memorable six months), but she was deeply gratified to see such familiar surroundings again. Before she'd had a child, she'd never thought twice about leaving home to go on missions, as she had little more responsibility than remembering to turn the lights off and switch off the heating. Nowadays it was a disappointment to be dragged away by work.

As she approached her house, she noticed one of her neighbours beginning to step out of his house. She pretended _not_ to notice him, however, as all he ever did was mutter obscenities about her son if he saw the boy. Even now, from the corner of her eye, she saw him pause in closing his door to stare at her as she hurried past, like he was debating going back inside, his intended trip spoiled by the mere sight of her. Well, the feeling was mutual. After enduring such a malevolent stare, some of the cheerfulness was gone from her step, so that by the time she pushed past her garden gate and ran up to the door, she was feeling a little subdued.

"I'm home," she called, pushing open the door to shed her shoes and coat in the entrance hall. No one responded to her, though she could smell the delicious smell of grilling fish coming from the kitchen.

Clutching the box to her chest, she poked her head into the living room and took note of the man sprawled on the sofa – if that was indeed what it was. It was hard to tell exactly what lay underneath that enormous mound of cushions, pillows and toys, although it was safe to assume it was Kakashi, the usual victim of Enoki's buckaroo experiments.

Judging by the soft snores, he was fast asleep.

With a wide grin, she slipped silently across the room and set the box on the floor before leaning over the buried man. When he still didn't react, she climb on top of him, toys and all.

He grunted and tried to shed the new weight. "Ngh… 'nough Enoki," he croaked. "Daddy has to check his eyelids."

Sakura moved aside a stuffed giraffe to touch her nose to his. "Found any holes in them yet?"

"Nm?" Kakashi's eye slid open to regard her coolly. "Oh. It's you."

"So cold," she pouted, faking a shiver.

"You're late."

"Does it matter? You didn't even turn the oven on till five minutes ago, right?"

"I never promised dinner would be _on_ the table the second you got back. But if I had you would have ruined it. Good thing I anticipated that you'd let us down."

"You mean, you fell asleep."

"That too."

"I'm sorry, I'm late," she told him earnestly. "I had to sort out this gift." She lightly tapped the box on the floor.

"For me?" he asked.

"For Enoki," she corrected.

Now it was his turn to pout. "Then where is _my _present?"

Her fingers crawled up to grasp the edge of his mask. "I've got your present right here," she said, with a faint leer as she inched the fabric down and leant in to – "Wait, what the hell is that?"

"Huh?"

Sakura sat up sharply, dragging him with her by the lapels of his vest. Stuffed animals and plastic blocks rained everywhere. In one hand she grabbed his chin, pushing it to the side to stare hard at his face. "What is this?" she demanded, rubbing her thumb roughly over the unmistakable lipstick kiss on his cheek. "Oh, I get it. When the cat's away, the dog does play – well, that's fine. That's fine! I'll just get a the list of people who've visited for the past week from Naruto and we'll play a little game of match the lipstick, and then I'll kill whoever-"

"Ah - it's really not what you think," Kakashi said, looking a little worried.

"You better pray I've just discovered your cross-dressing hobby," she ground out between her teeth. "Because after I kill _her_, you'll be next and I'm going to take my time and enjoy-"

"_Mommy!_"

"_Baby!"_ Sakura dropped Kakashi in a second, and whirled with a beaming smile to catch the little boy who hurtled into her at top speed. They dropped to the floor, laughing and giggling with Sakura raining dozens of kisses all over her son's face. "I missed you, Enoki," she laughed, squeezing him. "Have you been good?"

"Yes!" he grinned.

That's when Sakura noticed... "What's this?" she asked, staring at his face.

"I'm daddy!"

Squinting one eye shut – but not quite managing to keep the other open – he pointed to the line of red lipstick down his left cheek that was almost certainly a crude representation of Kakashi's scar. It would have been quite accurate if not for the fact he'd also painted his lips in the same bright shade. Sakura was impressed. He'd even managed to keep within the lines, so to speak.

She looked at Kakashi who shrugged.

"I told him _Crimson Love_ wasn't his colour," he said, pushing the rest of the toys off him to swing his feet back to the floor.

"Amazing," Sakura said, looking between them with feigned bemusement. "I don't know which is which... and I have a present here for Enoki, but who do I give it to?"

"Me, me!" Enoki looked alarmed and quickly wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "I'm Enoki, mommy!"

"Ah! So you are!" She wrapped him in another hug and a noisy kiss. "Since you've been such a good boy and you took such good care of the fish while I was away last month, I have a little something for you. And it's not just a present, Enoki, it's a _huge_ responsibility. I'm trusting you with this, ok?"

She picked up the brown box she'd set on the floor and passed it onto Enoki's lap. It rustled softly, and when Sakura pulled on the ribbon loose holding the lid together, a small furry head popped out quizzically, much to Enoki's delight. "Kittie!" he cried.

"She' s one of Nya's last litter," she told him, helping the little calico cat out of the box. "She trusts you enough to take care of her kitten, and she'll be yours for life. It'll be your responsibility to train her and teach her to talk. Do you think you can do that?"

Enoki was gazing in open-mouthed awe at the small cat that wiggled around in his lap, head-butting his hand. He'd had a lot of experience with animals, from cats to dogs, and even to _toads_, but his expression of delight to finally have one of his own was something to behold. "I'll do my best!" he chirped, rosy-cheeked with pleasure. "Can I name her?"

"Anything you like."

"Nya Two!"

"Try something more original, baby."

"Um..." He picked up the little cat and held her up gently, giggling when she mewed at him. He looked at her feet, all four of which were covered in black splotches. "Socks! Her name's Socks!"

"Sakura."

She looked up at Kakashi, realising he was frowning rather deeply at her. "Hmm?" She went on smiling blithely.

"A _word,_ if you please," he said curtly, and stood to walk out of the room. His footsteps receded up the stairs.

"It's never just _one_ word," Sakura muttered. She patted Enoki on the head one last time and stood. "Play gently with her, remember."

"Mm-hm!" Enoki had already found a stray thread dangling from his sleeve, and was happily bouncing it up and down for the kitten's amusement.

Sakura left him to it and went to join Kakashi upstairs, silently bracing herself, for if he wanted to speak to her up there it usually meant it was something he didn't want Enoki to hear. She passed her old bedroom, now Enoki's, and straight to the master bedroom she shared with Kakashi. It was abrupt. The moment she stepped through the door, it slammed shut behind her, and then there was Kakashi in front of her, crowding her against it. "What's the matter with you?" she asked calmly, with a hint of defiance.

"What are you doing, giving him a nekonin?" he confronted. "I thought we agreed to get him a ninken? We were supposed to give him a puppy."

"Were we?" She shrugged, remaining aloof. "I thought that was just something _you_ decided on your own."

"Sakura-"

"Fine. If you want to go and take the kitten off him, be my guest," she said, folding his arms.

Kakashi's scowl deepened. "That's not fair, Sakura. I'm the one feeding him and putting him to bed at night and reading him stories while you're off adventuring in the mountains – you don't get to just sweep in and buy all his affection with presents."

"It's not like I love going away for weeks on end leaving him, but _someone_ has to earn the money around here," she rebuked, "and it sure as hell isn't going to be you. And don't pretend I'm 'buying his affections'. Everyone knows he loves you the most."

"That's not true," he said, relenting. "He idolises you."

"He sees more of you, though. I know how it goes. Don't begrudge me the chance to spoil him to make sure he remembers his poor old mother."

"Don't rub it in."

"If it bothers you so much, get him a puppy as well. There's no rule against two summoning contracts," she said snippily. "And is this what I get? I spend a freezing week in the Iron country, wishing I was here with my family, and when I get here it's even colder?" She pouted and looked up at him through her lashes. "I missed you. I came right home just to see you guys. Don't I even get a little kiss?"

His cheek twitched as if he was struggling to hold onto to his temper, or some other rapidly loosening form of restraint. Sakura slid her gaze down his front and gave a soft sound of appreciation when she saw the front of his pants. "Well, _someone_ missed me at least," she murmured, running a hand gently over his hip.

He pushed her hand away. "Don't look at that. That's not for you."

Sakura smiled widely, reaching for him again. "I beg to differ-"

"You didn't stop in at the administration office on your way here?" he asked, making her pause.

"No," she said. "Why?

"Then you haven't heard..."

"Heard?"

"That Sasuke was sighted very close to here about three days ago."

Sakura's hands drew back. She didn't meet his eye, but her hesitation was hard to miss before she began playing with his shirt collar again. "So?"

"So that means nothing to you, does it?" He sounded disbelieving.

She looked at their chest of drawers. "What do you want me to say?" she asked.

"Something..." he sighed and leaned his hands on the door to either side of her head. "It's likely that one day Naruto will succeed in returning him to the village, and when that happens-"

"Oh, you think I'll immediately ditch my family and go running off to him?" she snorted.

"No. I know you'd never do that. But," he said heavily, "is there a chance you might... regret settling for me? If it wasn't for Enoki, would you be even here?"

"What's brought this on?" she asked, scowling at him. "Self-pity doesn't suit you, Kakashi, you _know_ I love you and Enoki and I couldn't regret either of you for a minute-"

"So why won't you marry me?"

She blinked at him. "Marry you? Is that all?" she said. "But I haven't paid you back yet for the-"

"You could do that tomorrow if you wanted. I've seen your bank statements, you've earned more than enough to pay me back for the house," he interrupted shortly. "What's really the problem? Is it the name? I told you, you don't have to change yours. I'll even change mine if you want. Or maybe we can change both of ours to Mr and Mrs Yamada."

She wrinkled her nose ever so slightly. "I don't really care about the name..." she said quietly.

"Is it the sex?" he asked plainly.

"God, no!"

"Then _what_?"

Wincing, she cast around for a decent excuse, but there didn't seem to be any left. "Oh, Kakashi, what do you expect! You can't even leave the house without armed escorts. How are we supposed to get married? I want a proper wedding where I can invite all my friends and co-workers and I want to marry a guy who won't be walking down the aisle with everyone staring at the monitoring unit around his ankle."

"No one can see it," he protested self consciously.

"But it's there! It's a ball and chain as far as most people are concerned." She began fiddling with his collar again. "And before you even joke about it – no, the only ball and chain on you that day _won't_ be the one in the wedding dress. I don't want everyone staring at us on the happiest day of our life, pitying us."

"Since when did you care what other people-" He cut himself off. Sakura had _always_ cared what other people thought of her. "If we're inviting friends it shouldn't matter. No real friends would stand there laughing behind their hands at us."

"Ino." Was all she had to say.

"Well, she's not coming," Kakashi said shortly.

"I can't not invite her."

"So you want to wait a year and then get married. Is that it?" He rapped his fingers irritably against the door. "I don't think I can wait that long."

"Oh," she scoffed. "What are you going to do? Fling me over your shoulder and carry me to the nearest registration office. ANBU would be all over you in seconds."

"Not if I take off the monitoring unit, and don't think I can't." Which seemed an awfully serious thing to say.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at him and gave him a long, hard look before saying, "Is it really that important to you?"

He looked away from her, saying nothing.

Relationships were full of concessions, that was the first thing she'd had to learn about living with the father of her child. She loved him. She was happy with the way things were, and marriage wouldn't change much so it wasn't something she longed for, but if she was going to be married, she wanted it to be the way she had always imagined it. But then she looked at Kakashi avoiding her gaze and realised that it was more important to him than it ever would be to her. He had so little control over his life these days. If he went anywhere, even to do something as simple as go to the shops for groceries, it had to be strictly organised and approved a day in advance. If he went to pick up Enoki from the academy, he had to wait until his escorts arrived before stepping out the front door.

"Alright," she said.

"Alright what?" he repeated grumpily.

"I'll marry you. Whenever you want, just name the date."

He was shaken for a moment. Then, as if testing her, he said, "Tomorrow."

"I've got a hair appointment tomorrow."

"Saturday then."

"I'm working."

"Sunday-"

"How about next month," she suggested quickly. "We'll need time to properly organise. There's clothes to choose, invitations to send out, cakes to buy... and we'll have to hire a caterer. And – oh – I can wear my mother's old wedding dress! I just need to get it refitted because she was about five months pregnant when she got married."

He smiled smugly. "See, you're going to enjoy this," he said. "Tenzou can be best man, Ino can be maid of honour. Enoki can be the flower girl-"

"Boy."

"-the flower boy, and everyone will be so busy smiling at you because of how beautiful you are that no one will be thinking of what's around my ankle."

"Oh," she squeaked in delight, leaning into him deliberately to wind her arms around his neck. "You have a sweet tongue. But you know what will be really amazing?"

"Mm?" He closed his eyes, his lips so close to hers.

"If we make a vow not to do it till the wedding night."

Kakashi's jaw clenched. "No."

Her back met the door with a thump, her body squashed against his chest as his mouth suddenly met hers. _Finally_. Seven cold days and nights and she'd been dying to reacquaint with the meaning of heat again. She moaned into his mouth and roamed her hands over his broad back. "Missed this," she practically purred.

He uttered a similar sort of sentiment, only far less coherent. He kissed up her throat and lifted her up against him till their bodies were perfectly, deliciously aligned. Sakura sighed, hearing the snap of her leggings being shoved down.

"A month?" he growled. "I can barely hold on a week, I don't think I can do a month."

"Yeah?" she panted, tackling his belt buckle. "But that'll be fun... doing it with _Mr Haruno_."

"What are you talking about, _Mrs Hatake?"_

"Just shut up and kiss me." And she pushed away from the door, legs caught with his, and they both went tumbling to the floor in a tangle of clothing and laughter.

* * *

The loud thud above made Enoki glance up at the ceiling to watch the light-fitting swing. The kitten looked too.

"They always do that, Socks" he told his new friend. "Whenever Mommy comes home, she and Daddy always go upstairs and jump on the bed."

_Idiot child._

Enoki paused. "If you're mean, I'll ignore you," he said in a sing-song voice.

_They're not jumping on the bed._

"...what are they doing?"

The voice told him, but it didn't make much sense to Enoki. "Sounds stupid," he said, and looked back at the kitten. "Hey, Socks, do you want to see the garden? I'll show you Daddy's strawberries."

Whisking the kitten up, he toddled through the kitchen and out into the garden. Socks seemed to like this. She stomped merrily through the strawberry patch until she came to the little pond beneath the willow. There were fish here, so she stopped at the edge to watch them intently.

_Just push the little furball in. I can't stand cats._

"What's wrong with cats?" Enoki asked.

_They eat birds._

"I like birds," Enoki said.

_Good boy._

"I think Socks likes fish more than birds though," he said, getting to his knees beside the cat to watching the darting goldfish that had once lived in the kitchen. "We're having fishies for dinner. I hope Daddy doesn't let it burn again... look, Socks, that's what they call a fish! A fuh-iih-shuh. Ok?"

Socks mewled enthusiastically, a keen student.

"And this is a ball! You bounce it and stuff. Um... and this is grass. It's to be soft under your feet when you're outside. And that..." he pointed to a green hosepipe that wiggled across the lawn. "...I don't remember what that's called."

_Tell her it's a cat-eating snake._

Enoki giggled. "No, it's not. It gives water to plants – oh – water! That's stuff you drink, Socks."

Although it was debatable if Socks understood any of what her human was telling her, she seemed very interested as he showed her round the garden, and Enoki decided his 'vo-cation' was probably to be a teacher like Naruto-sensei. Although he supposed Naruto-sensei's real vo-cation was to be boss of the village. He didn't get much time these days to teach Enoki, and when he did it was all boring stuff like sitting still for ages and trying not to think. Meditating, he called it.

"Sensei says this helps to learn stuff, Socks," Enoki said, sitting down on the grass with the kitten. "Just keep still and empty your head."

_Stupid._

"Don't be mean."

_Cats can't meditate. Look at her._

Socks had quickly grown bored and was tiptoeing off back to the pond to take another look at the fish. A bang and a clatter in the kitchen let Enoki know that his parents had finished jumping on the – no – what was it called again? Either way, he'd be getting his own fish soon, and maybe he could ask his father to share some with Socks, even though he hated cats as much as Rokubi did.

_You shouldn't meditate either. It's bad for you._

"Why?"

_Because._

"Sensei says it's good for me. I think I believe him."

'_Sensei' is an idiot too. You should stay away from him. The fox is the worst of us, you know. I can't have you dying. If you die, I die too._

"Die..." Enoki repeated. "What does that mean?"

"Enoki."

He jumped guiltily and turned to crane his neck and look up at his father. He hadn't heard him coming, and from the unpleasant look on his face, he'd heard him talking to _it_. His father hated when he talked to _it_ even more than he hated cats. And for some reason he'd changed his clothes.

"I called you for dinner, didn't you hear me?" Kakashi asked softly.

"Sorry..." Enoki cringed.

His father watched him blankly for a moment, before sighing and picking him up. "Don't listen to it, Enoki. It's not your friend."

_What does he know? And who is he calling an 'it'? _

_Sorry,_ thought Enoki, and cleared his mind as his sensei had taught him. Gradually that turbulent, chaotic voice faded into quietness. It was the only way to shut it out, but he was getting better at it, even though sometimes he felt bad; the voice wasn't always mean. The old man who lived four houses down scared him more and said far worse things to him.

"Come on, you two," his mother called from the doorway to the kitchen, flapping a great deal of smoke out with a tea cloth.

"Ok?" his father asked him.

"Yes." Enoki nodded with a smile. "It's gone."

"Time for dinner, then! Come on, Spot... or whatever your name is," Kakashi called to the kitten by the pond.

"Socks," Enoki corrected.

"Whatever." And his father carried him inside to join his mother for dinner.

* * *

**Fin**

*tears a little***  
**


End file.
